Will of Fire, Heart of Rock
by The Lemon-Aide
Summary: It's been half a year since the two left their home to prepare, and the apprentice of the Gama Sennin is concerned with his lack of progress. So he decides to take matters into his own hands. The results will rock the world. AU
1. Rogue Apprentice

**Will of Fire, Heart of Rock**

**Disclaimer: **Hi there, my name's Kishimoto, and I totally own Naruto. (Grin)

**AN: **Not much to say about this. It's my first fic and I'm hoping anyone who reads this enjoys it. Some feedback would be helpful as well, seeing as I have very little experience in writing.

I

Naruto sat on a worn, moss-covered log, poking at a smoldering campfire. His eyes reflecting the anger and annoyance he felt towards his absent sensei. The young gennin was currently located a few miles from the nearest town, where the Toad Sage had left him to set up camp.

They could have easily traveled the remaining distance and gotten a hotel, and maybe had a decent meal. But no, the sage had said he didn't want Naruto to get used to the comforts of civilization.

Naruto snorted briefly at that thought, prodding a few loose sticks and throwing some more grass onto the flames.

What Jiraiya had really meant was that he wanted to save up his money so he could go to the recently opened brothel. That was okay with Naruto though, because it meant he'd get to eat all the rations. But still…

It had been a little under six months since they'd left to train for the threat of Akatsuki, and Naruto had yet to make any real progress. And while he wasn't the kind of person to blame others for his failings, he was certain it was Ero-Sannin's fault.

The only thing he had 'taught' Naruto as of yet was how to further access the Kyuubi's youkai easier. And even _that _small scrap of teaching had only come after Naruto had shown he was proficient enough in the rasengan that he only had to use one hand.

Naruto sighed forlornly as he began to rekindle the forgotten fire. Mopping wasn't his thing though, so he decided to do something constructive. Positioning himself comfortably on the log, he began to go over all the techniques he knew. To see how he measured up to… _him_, so far.

Sasuke.

His posture wilted slightly, remembering his lost comrade. He'd have to work twice as hard to bring the Teme back, he decided, as he was now the apprentice of a sannin. A much more dedicated sannin, he thought bitterly to himself. Pushing those undeniably _emo _thoughts to the back of his mind, he began to go through his inventory of jutsu.

I

Onoki sighed tiredly as he scratched his initials on another scrap of paper, moving it into a quickly growing pile. The Village Hidden in the Rocks witnessing a rather peaceful sunset, much earlier than most places due to its natural mountain enclosure. The Tsuchikage had no time for such things though, as he knew there were at least a few important papers he needed to get to somewhere in the pile.

Sneering at yet another request for the funds required to build a shrine dedicated to one Deidara, formerly of Iwa. Quickly signing his initials in the space labeled 'DENIED', he moved onto the next form.

And it was then, in the waning light of the Iwa Kage Tower, that the Tsuchikage felt a large shudder run through his entire body. Perhaps an omen of future comings, or simply a reply to the opened window behind him, the Tsuchikage didn't know.

He knew something for sure though. Pain.

"AGH! My back!"

I

In the complete silence of the forest, a certain jumpsuit wearing teen meditated quietly on a log. A bystander would marvel at how the figure blended in so completely with nature, and yet so blatantly stood out. But while on the outside Naruto seemed entirely at peace, on the inside he was on the verge of panicking.

_I only know __**three **__offensive techniques? _Naruto screamed to himself.

He supposed he knew why he'd never thought of it before. What with all the time-consuming missions he'd gone through, the Sand-Sound invasion, and Sasuke's defection, he'd been entirely focused on surviving.

He'd survived well enough, but at this point things weren't looking too good. While Rasengan, Kage Bunshin, and Kuchiyose were all very impressive jutsu, they wouldn't help him very much in the coming years.

Not only would Sasuke be stronger than ever, but he still had to worry about the Akatsuki. Kisame and Itachi. Two he'd met for the briefest periods of time, yet they'd both made a deep impression on him. So powerful, that one of them had single-handedly defeated a trio of jounin. One of them – his sensei – an _elite_.

This would not be enough. Not even close. He couldn't rely on the Kyuubi to help him either, as the damn fox had almost taken control during Naruto and Jiraiya's seldom 'training sessions'. Not even hours of washing in a nearby stream could rid him of the disgusting wisps of youkai coursing through his system.

Naruto's eyes snapped open, and there was a determined glint in his eyes. Slowly getting up and gathering his things, he made his way over to the Toad Sage's bag. Rummaging around for a few minutes, he laid out the items in front of him carefully, analyzing each and every one of them.

A sannin had no need for such things as kunai and shuriken, so it seemed he wouldn't be restocking those anytime soon. There were other things there though, he noticed, very valuable things.

The first thing, a scroll filled with Doton jutsu, ranging from C to A-rank. These would be very valuable, he decided, upon noticing that they were mostly defensive techniques.

The second, a small stack of clear white paper, made him frown in puzzlement. He eventually stowed them in his pack, reasoning that Ero-sannin wouldn't have them if they didn't serve a purpose.

Third in his findings was something resembling a Bingo Book, but upon opening it, revealed information on all of the Akatsuki members. Naruto stared at the many filled pages for several moments, before grinning slightly and stowing the book in his front pocket.

Naruto stared at the next pair of items in front of him, a bead of perspiration traveling down the back of his neck. A pair of wooden geta with metal gripping. Unbelievable.

Glancing at his own sandals, he sighed resignedly, taking off the nearly shredded materials. Replacing them with the geta, he found that not only were they comfortable, (most-likely because of the smooth grooves expertly carved into the heel and pad areas) but they were his exact size. He chuckled wryly; Ero-sennin must have expected him to wear out his sandals.

Turning his attention to the last item, a large storage scroll, he curiously picked it up and examined it. After his attempts of opening it with chakra failed, he looked a little closer. And though he knew next to nothing about seals, he vaguely recognized this one as some type of blood seal.

Damnit, that meant he probably wouldn't be able to get into it. But, as if pushed by an invisible force, he bit his thumb and swiped his blood across it. Eh, he figured, what the hell?

When the scroll began to shudder, Naruto thought he'd done something wrong.

_Shit! _He thought frantically, as the scroll began to smoke. Was it going to explode? Spray him with poison? Summon some vicious beast? The list of possibilities went on and Naruto quickly found shelter behind a large tree.

Twisting his head around the trunk, he watched in trepidation, before heaving a sigh of relief when the scroll suddenly stopped. It then exploded into smoke.

Cautiously making his way towards the smoke, he hurriedly waved it away with his hand, and then proceeded to gape at the sight before him.

There lay en even larger scroll than the one it was sealed in, with the kanji for 'Thunder' on the seal in golden ink; and on top of the large mystery scroll, balanced a single kunai.

It had three prongs.

I

Deep in the bowels of a hidden cave, a masked figure suddenly stopped what he'd been doing and looked up to the ceiling. A close observer would have notice the crimson eye in the mask's single hole morph from a three-tomoe state into a strange combination of thick diagonal lines and circles.

The man glared into oblivion for a moment more, muttering something incomprehensible, before continuing briskly down the hallway. Reaching a large sealed door, he casually added chakra and opened the door without so much as a warning to the inhabitants.

A pair of dull purple ringed eyes stared at the masked figure seriously, ushering the man into the room without a word.

The robed man strolled over to the chair in front of the large desk, sitting down and propping his feet up on the table. The strange eyes flashed dangerously for a moment, before dimming.

"To what do I owe the honor, Madara?"

I

Naruto stared at the scroll held in his hands, which trembled ever so slightly; the Hiraishin (Flying Thunder God) technique. The Yondaime's most prized jutsu, which virtually won the Third Great Shinobi War for Konoha.

And he was holding it.

The jutsu capable of transporting his idol to any place the seal existed in less than a millisecond. So fast that the barest of a yellow flash was all that could be seen by those who'd witnessed his technique.

And this kunai, Naruto thought, reverently staring at its smooth surface, was the tool that he used to do it.

Quickly sealing both back into the smaller storage scroll, he stuffed it into his pack and closed the flaps. He stared sadly at the camp, and then in the direction of the city. Pulling out one of the pieces of paper from his pack, he scrawled down a quick message.

He stood there for a while longer, almost hoping that his sensei would arrive and offer him to do something. _Anything_. But nobody came, as to be expected of the great Toad Sage of Konoha.

And just like that Naruto left. His wooden geta making soft clunking noises against the branches as he took to the trees, heading in the opposite direction of the sannin.

He didn't look back.

I

Jiraiya stumbled through the forest, giggling stupidly while thinking of the many fine specimens he'd researched that night.

Upon making it to the camp site, he was slightly annoyed that the fire had long since died out. Damn inconsiderate brats… He lit the flames again with a minor Katon jutsu, stretching himself out with a yawn. Taking a seat on the log he reached for the bag of rations, only to feel air.

Looking down, his eyes lit up with fury seeing the bag completely empty. Storming angrily over to the tent and opened the flap, yelling at the top of his lungs.

"Gaki! Where do you get off eating all of my-!" The old sannin paused, blinking confusedly at the empty sleeping bag.

Feeling slightly worried, he quickly sent out a pulse of chakra, reassuring himself as he did. The gaki was probably just down by the stream taking a bath or something.

But he didn't feel the kid's chakra signature. And that was saying something, considering the young gennin's chakra was like a lighthouse compared to most _jounin_ he knew.

Rushing back out to the camp, he quickly checked his bag, and began to curse like sailor. All of his things were gone, including the Hiraishin scroll!

A slight rustle caught his attention, and he quickly drew his hand out of the bag, holding a small piece of paper. There was some messy kanji scrawled on the front.

_Hey there Ero-sennin. Since you're reading this I'm guessing you've finally returned from the brothel._

Jiraiya sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, even though there was nobody there to see it.

_Now before you come searching for me, I'm asking you to do me a favor. Just let me be. I promise in two and a half years time I'll return to Konoha, just like we planned._

_I know you probably don't feel the same way as me, but I don't think I've learned much at all during this trip. I need to get stronger so I can bring Sasuke back and wreck all those Akatsuki bastards._

_And I know you've been holding out on me. Don't worry, I'll make good use of the Hiraishin._

Here there was a small chibi Naruto waving the peace sign at him.

_Yours Truly,_

_Future Rokudaime A.K.A Uzumaki Naruto_

Jiraiya chuckled dryly at that, his mind racing as he thought of all the consequences this could cause. Damnit, Tsunade was going to kill him!

The last thing he thought before leaping off into the trees to the west, was of the paper the note had been written on.

_He wrote on my elemental paper! That shit's expensive!_

I

Naruto had gone as far as he possibly could last night, and could honestly say that he was exhausted. He'd traveled a lot of ground though, that much was certain, as he gazed at the foreign town.

Having already caught an early breakfast, he steeled himself for what he was about to do. Wandering around the town for awhile, he finally found what he'd been looking for, the Library.

Reluctantly entering through the wooden doors, and walked up to the librarian. He shyly asked if she knew where he could find the maps. The young woman couldn't have been older than eighteen, and she was very beautiful. Her hair was tied up into a bun, and there was a gentle smile on her face.

She happily escorted him to the rack that held said scrolls. She gave him a wink before sauntering back to her desk, leaving the teen to stare after her with a dazed look in his eyes.

Quickly coming back to himself he grabbed a map of the elemental nations.

It took quite some time before he finally pinpointed his location, based on the places he and Jiraiya had already traveled, and quickly found the nearest Hidden Village. He stared at the yellow shaded continent for several minutes. His head hit the table.

"Shit."

I

Tsunade was having a bad day. Or she was having a good day, which automatically made it a bad day. Damnit, why were things always so complicated?

It had started out normally enough, just another day getting hounded by Shizune to finish paperwork she didn't want to. And then the messenger bird had arrived.

The basic rundown of the note was that several of her more persistent debt collectors had suddenly… disappeared. While that had Shizune jumping down in glee, it only served to put her on edge.

Then she'd heard the results of the lotto. The one she'd bought a ticket for every day since she'd returned to Konoha. She'd won the jackpot, bonus numbers and everything. That had her tensed up for the rest of the day.

That's when it happened. She'd finally broken into her sensei's sake stash. The one with the impossibly complicated chakra enforced combination that required a massive amount of luck to crack if you didn't know the codes. She'd stared at the enormous room in a sort of demented wonder, before the full implications sunk in.

So now she was hiding under her desk, readying for the apocalypse that she was sure was approaching.

When right in front of her, a poof of smoke erupted. It was a toad the size of her head.

It wasn't the apocalypse, she decided, seeing the grave expression on its face. But it might be just as bad.

I

It had taken a few days, but Naruto had finally reached his destination. He decided to relax for the remaining duration of the day, seeing as it was almost sun set. Sitting calmly under one of the many waterfalls, Naruto meditated.

The sounds of nature slowly faded away, until all he heard was a heavy, constant thrum. And then, darkness.

Naruto 'woke-up' to find himself in his mindscape. Alright, now it was time to get this over with. The reason for his horrid chakra control and constant neglect, the Kyuubi, was at the end of the corridor.

Finally reaching the gates that trapped his prisoner, he calmly waited for the fox to acknowledge his presence. After what seemed like a few minutes, an enormous crimson eye cracked open, staring at him with an intensity that would have terrified him if he weren't Uzumaki Naruto.

**What do you want, ningen? **The Kyuubi's voice echoed off the stone walls of his mind, causing an annoying ringing in his ear.

"I want you to stop filtering me chakra," Naruto said firmly.

The great Bijuu stared at him for a moment, its eyes dancing with amusement.

**And why should I do what you say? **It replied, more entertained than anything else at the thought of a human telling it what to do.

"Because it's messing up my control. If I don't have control, that means I can't improve as much as I could with at least an average amount. And If my skills aren't up to par, then it's just going to make the Akatsuki's job that much easier."

If the demon had had a hand to wave the human off with, it would have done so.

**Your little techniques are worthless either way. You'll never find a power greater than mine, and those pesky flies that are after us will never be able to match it. For all I care, you can rot in a cave until they find us. It won't make any difference.**

_It seems pretty sure of itself, _Naruto thought.

"But what if the members of Akatsuki have means of surpressing your power? Remember the forest of death? Orochimaru easily sealed you away and he isn't even close to being a seals master. And if I have to rely on your power for every confrontation, I'll be helpless in the face of someone able to counter it."

That gave the demon pause, images of a certain masked Uchiha coming to mind. It appraised him for a moment, before what felt like an earthquake rumbled through the chamber. The Kyuubi no Youkai was chuckling.

**Alright then, Ningen, but on one condition, **Naruto's shoulder tensed.

Seeing this, the demon ground out another earthquake-chuckle.

**Smart little ningen, aren't you? My demands are rather simple: You must kill Uchiha Madara. If you have not done so within 10 years I will overrun your body with my youkai and destroy you, because unlike one such as yourself, Hell is only a temporary binding for me.**

The Kyuubi was of course talking bullshit. Not only was it impossible to force the needed amount of raw youkai beyond the damnable seal, but when they died, they would both go straight to the Shinigami's stomach. Not even the great Kyuubi could escape the God of Death. But the seal _was _weakening. It was only a matter of time.

And before the confused boy could ask who Madara was and why he had Sasuke's last name, the Bijuu ejected him from his mind.

Naruto regained consciousness soaking wet and shivering, underneath the rushing waters of the small waterfall. He quickly made his way back to his camp, changing his clothes and putting on his geta. The sun had risen almost all the way into the sky, and Naruto nodded his head in satisfaction.

It was time to go.

He spent most of the rest of the day climbing up the mountains surrounding his destination. And finally, the sun almost fully descended, he made it to the top of the large natural structures.

Staring out at the land, he let himself soak in the irony as he surveyed his temporary home.

Iwagakure.

I

Gamakichi wasn't having the best of days. In fact, he'd have to say it was pretty much one of his worst. Cowering behind a nearby chair, he observed the raging Kage bemusedly.

Currently yelling a string of cuss words, the sennin was giving Gamakichi quite the blush. He'd recently delivered the news from his (old and pervy) summoner, and Tsunade wasn't taking it too well.

"That fucking idiot! That no good, god damned piece of shit -," Gamakichi wasn't sure whether it was a deep sense of loyalty after what the two had been through or some masochist urge that made him speak up in defense of his blond bro.

"Hey, Tsunade-hime, don't be too hard on Naruto-Niisan. He's got a lot on his mind right now, and his note did say that he'd be back in two and a half years like you and Jiraiya planned."

He shrank further when the Hokage turned her furious gaze on him. There was some confusion flickering on her face, before realization dawned. Despite the situation, Tsunade chuckled dryly.

"I'm not talking about Naruto-kun," Gamakichi pondered that for a moment, before wincing in sympathy for his other summoner. Most of the things the big-chested blond had said she'd do were things she'd never inflict upon her 'Naruto-kun'. Jiraiya on the other hand…

"S-so, do you want to send Jiraiya-jiji a reply?" It hurt the young toad's pride that he couldn't stop the slight waver in his voice, but he quickly reassured himself that it was perfectly okay in the face of the enraged woman.

Tsunade grinned evilly.

I

Naruto whistled merrily as he set to work. He estimated that his Bunshin had made it over the mountains of Iwa about an hour ago, so they should have found a couple potential jobs by now. All that was left was to set up a permanent camp, and then he could begin training.

A couple minutes later saw our young hero walking out of a cave, hidden behind one of the smaller waterfalls. Lugging the bag of Jiraiya-sensei's things behind him, he found an open clearing hidden in the shadow of the mountains, and unloaded the contents of the pack.

Despite what he may have liked to think, he knew he wasn't ready to start training in the Hiraishin yet. Not only did he know less than the average ninja about seals, but most of the things in the scroll made no sense to him at all to him.

Moving on to the next most puzzling objects, the blank papers, he pondered on what they could possibly be used for. Curiously picking one up and twirling it around in his fingers, he noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe it was just regular old paper?

An idea suddenly popped into his head, and he figured he might as well try it out. His assumption proved correct when the paper reacted to his chakra.

Naruto stared at it for a moment. Well, that was certainly strange.

Dropping the two pieces of paper, he proceeded onto the Doton scroll. He grinned seeing the first jutsu on the scroll. It was only a D-rank to be sure, but a very useful one.

**Earth Release: Double Suicide Decapitation Technique**. A jutsu that allowed one two burrow underground and drag his target down below with him, leaving them immobile, or dead.

It certainly brought him back. A sudden rush of information from his dispelled Bunshin alerted him to the fact that he had an interview tomorrow for a place called Nakomaru Armory. He frowned slightly at the fact that it was the only job opening his clone had been able to find.

_Oh well, _Naruto thought, _I'll just have to be twice as impressive tomorrow_.

And with that comforting thought, Naruto got to work.

I

**AN: **Hey there readers, I hope you liked my first chapter. I know that it's pathetically short, but it's a start, right? So, any reviews and constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated. The same goes for any potential Beta's.

**07/16/10- I edited the scene with Kyuubi a bit, as Naruto's reasoning in the original version wsan't very convincing. Hope you enjoyed it.**


	2. And so it begins

**Will of Fire, Heart of Rock**

**Disclaimer: **I shoulda bought it, when I saw it, at _Ma-rden's_.

**AN: **Hot damn, I'm starting this next chapter about half a day after I submitted the first one and I've already got nine reviews. Granted three of them were people complaining that, "It doesn't matter if Naruto has a water affinity as well, that doesn't mean he'd have the Hyouton! $%#!" But oh well.

I'll get to that little topic at the end of this chapter, so anyway, thanks to all those that reviewed.

II

"Damnit!"

Naruto's training was off to a bit of a rocky start.

Grumbling angrily, he smashed at the dirt surrounding his feet with one of his old, blunted kunai. He winced at the sharp crack that sounded when the kunai slammed against his wooden geta, but sighed in relief when they seemed unharmed.

He'd started training with the Headhunter jutsu first. So far he'd been able to get about ankle deep with a lot of concentration. The bad thing was that he couldn't force himself back out, a fairly big problem all things considered. It wouldn't do to get in over his head and not be able to get back out.

It'd taken him _hours _to learn the Kage Bunshin, and that was a B-Rank Kinjutsu from the Forbidden Scroll! Right now he was on his second day of training with the damn thing.

There must be some reason for his difficulty in learning the jutsu, so Naruto decided to do some research. And by research, he meant _research_. Like books and scrolls and such, not that stupid peeping his Ero-sensei did.

He quickly made the hand sign for his signature technique, and summoned a single clone.

"After you're done with your job at the armory, go to the library and see if there's anything you can find out about the trouble this stupid Doton is giving me," with that, he dispelled the bunshin.

The clone he'd sent over in the morning to attend his job had been enforced with extra chakra, so it should have a couple minutes worth of chakra left after work. Knowing that the clone would receive his instructions from his recently dispersed one, he turned back to his hidden cave.

He wasn't giving up on the technique he told himself, oh no, he'd be back later to put that particular technique in its place. But for now, he figured he'd study up on the Akatsuki while he waited for news from his clone.

Making his way out of the dark cave so he could get some reading light, he settled himself in a small clearing near the waterfall. And he read.

II

Jiraiya's chest constricted in unease as he searched the border of Rice (he wouldn't put it past the kid to run straight to Oto so he could 'save' his teammate). He dully acknowledged the feeling as guilt. He underestimated just how far the gaki would go for his friends. And the pressing concern of Akatsuki couldn't have done much to ease his nerves.

He'd been covering as much ground as possible for the past two days, but he still hadn't found hide nor hair of his blond apprentice. After an entire day of traveling at his fastest speeds, he'd decided the gaki hadn't gone in that direction. The kid was rather talented, but nowhere near him in terms of speed.

That left two directions, the ones leading to Kusa and Iwa. He wasn't going to find anything here, so he'd better check out Kusa. After all, the kid wasn't nearly stupid enough to go to Konoha's worst enemy looking almost exactly like the Yondaime. Right?

II

Contrary to Jiraiya's beliefs, the Village of Iwa wasn't that harsh to its inhabitants. As it had a fair population of loyal blondes, they weren't persecuted. Much.

In the case of one Nakomara Ko, the child who he'd taken on as an employee was a strange one indeed. Looked almost exactly like the Yondaime, but two certain traits kept him from outright kicking the boy out of his shop.

The first, his eyes; beautiful cerulean sparkling with excitement at the prospect of working under him. Not only were they the wrong the color, but they seemed too innocent to possibly have a hint of the blond demon's DNA in them.

And the second, more defining points, his clan markings. Or perhaps tattoo's. Either way, the Yondaime Hokage certainly didn't have six horizontal whisker marks on his face.

So he'd taken the boy on as, not quite an apprentice, but a trainee of sorts. He wouldn't teach him all of his techniques, as most of the more complicated ones took chakra he was almost sure the boy didn't have. But he'd give the boy some tricks to start his career with.

_He certainly has the dedication though, _Ko thought amusedly, catching the young boy taking notes out of the corner of his eye. Finishing up the Katana he'd been working on for the past few days, he set the sword down and performed a minor Suiton jutsu, splashing the sword and sending steam into the air.

II

Naruto's had discovered that the book wasn't as detailed as he'd previously thought. So far he'd read through the profiles of Deidara and Kisame, the one that'd been with Itachi during the confrontation at the hotel. He'd just started on the profile of someone named Kakuza, when his ears twitched.

His eyes widened upon hearing the consistent _tap tap tap_-ing of soft footsteps. Ninja were coming, and they'd most certainly see him out in this clearing. Guessing that he wouldn't have time to skirt around the waterfall and across the ledge, he sprinted across the water and dove through the waterfall.

Grunting as he rolled with his fall, Naruto tried to hear the approaching ninja over the rushing of the waterfall. The soft tapping of feet faded and Naruto leaned against the wall in relief. That had been close.

Being spotted by enemy ninja (even though he wasn't currently wearing his headband) was bad either way, and he still didn't have a very convincing cover story thought up yet.

He slumped down tiredly. Things would have been so much easier if he'd just stayed in one of the smaller towns in Earth Country.

_No it wouldn't have, _he reminded itself. He'd seen first-hand what would have happened if he'd done that.

_Naruto sprinted through the forest, going as fast as his wooden geta would carry him. He'd left approximately n hour and a half hour ago, and though he didn't think Ero-sennin would be getting back to their camp anytime soon, he wasn't taking any chances._

_He squinted, spotting an opening in the forest. Sprinting full speed, he made it to the clearing in seconds, shoulders slumping in relief and exhaustion. Drinking in the small town, he jumped off the branch he was standing on. He needed food, his stomach told him._

_Walking through the town, he was surprised to find at least two guards in front of the doors of every building on the street. Not even the Hidden Villages had security that exclusive. Shrugging it off, Naruto stewed in the fact that he'd most likely be washing dishes or something of the sort for food tonight._

_So immersed in his thoughts was he that he almost missed a small grocery store he'd been about to walk passed. Grinning, Naruto made his way to the doors._

_Only to be stopped by one of the guards._

"_Sorry kid, need to pay the tax to get in, that's the rule," Naruto stared at the man for a second, confused. What kind of rule was that? He stared suspiciously at the man, tall (about 5' 8") and burly, with little hair on his head._

_He was the polar opposite of his partner, a skeleton of a man with long hair and a grinning face. There was a samurai sword strapped to his back._

_Figuring they wouldn't let him in if they found out he didn't have any money, Naruto improvised._

"_Er, I only have enough money to buy some food for me and my family," Naruto quickly lied._

_The grinning skeleton gripped him by the scruff of his collar, hoisting him up to eye-level, "Well then hows about you give us your money, and we don't __**kill **__you?" He sneered._

_Naruto growled, glancing over to the other guard to see his furious expression. Only he wasn't furious, it didn't even look like he cared. He just stood there with an emotionless expression, arms crossed._

"_Let go of me," Naruto ground out._

_The man just chuckled, grabbing the sword on his back and unsheathing it, swinging it downward to sever the blonds head._

_It never made it._

_The man's expression was priceless as he sailed through the air, his stomach a bloody spiral. Naruto smirked victoriously, before quickly ducking a punch to his head._

_Turning around, he spotted the burly man trying to pull his arm out of the stone wall it had smashed through. Quickly running up to the man, he performed a jumping kick to his head, sending that into the wall as well._

_Quickly making his way into the store, he walked up to the counter and slammed his hands on the counter to gain the grocers attention. Her head snapped up, eyes darting up and down his body before stopping at his hands. They widened in fear._

_Naruto looked down at his hands in confusion, and stared at his right hand for a second. He quickly wiped it on his pant-leg, leaving a deep red stain. It seemed he'd gone a bit too far with that rasengan._

_Giving her a reassuring grin, Naruto spoke._

"_What was up with those guys standing outside your door? If those are your guards, you'll probably want to get some new ones. The big one said I had to pay to get in, and when I said I didn't have enough to, the one with the sword threatened to kill me!" The woman had slowly gotten paler as she listened to his rant._

"_A-and, what did you do?" Her voice was but a whisper, but Naruto easily heard her._

"_Oh don't worry, I handled them. The thin one is probably half-way across town by now, and the big one is stuck in your wall," he turned sheepish, "Sorry ' bout that by the way."_

_The woman trembled. Just before Naruto asked her why she was shaking, she spoke, her voice firmer than earlier, "You have to leave, now."_

_Naruto's eyes reflected his confusion. "But why? I'm sorry about what I did to your guards, but-," the woman interrupted him, louder this time._

"_Those weren't my guards, you need to leave. You're in danger, get as far away as you can, leave __**now**__!" Her voice escalated, until it was a scream. Naruto stumbled out of the store, and ran._

_There were voices shouting behind him the entire trip out of the village._

_He passed many more during his escape, but they were all heavily populated by __**them**__. Bandits. The first town he found that didn't have as many, he found a map to the nearest hidden village, where he was sure there wouldn't be any._

And now he couldn't leave. He doubted his abilities as a sensei, but he would never doubt Jiraiya's spy-network. If it had found out that much information on the Akatsuki for him, it could sure as hell find a wandering orange genin with six whisker marks.

He was just lucky the old perv didn't have any contacts in Iwa. At least, he hoped he didn't.

A rush of information entered his brain, and he perked up considerably. His clone had found the reason he was having so much trouble with the Headhunter jutsu. His elemental affinity. The clone hadn't been able to figure out what it was, but it was a safe assumption that it wasn't earth.

Apparently from what the clone had been able to read before running too low on chakra, your elemental affinity determined the difficulty in which you'd learn certain jutsu. Having two or more natural affinities could also combine to create another element entirely.

This immediately reminded Naruto of Haku.

II

Orochimaru chuckled appreciatively as he watched his apprentice practice with his blade. The boy was getting better, and he had even started to attempt to channel his lightning chakra through it. He called it Chidori Nagashi.

The boy had progressed greatly so far, and Orochimaru suspected his sharingan was a part of it. His taijutsu had not fallen behind though, and Orochimaru estimated he was on par with a low-level chunin in that respect. The Hebi Sage had even had him sign his summoning contract.

Orochimaru chuckled again. Yes, Sasuke-kun's training was proving to be an outstanding success so far.

II

Sasuke's eyes narrowed as he examined the metal training dummy before him. There were several deep gashes on it, but they were still only that, gashes. He still hadn't completed the Chidori Nagashi yet.

Sasuke continued his training, feeling rather satisfied. His training had been going excellently so far, and he'd learned more with Orochimaru in half a year than in all six of his years in the academy. Perhaps even more than his entire time as a shinobi.

He hummed in approval when his blade cut the dummy in half. But it still wasn't enough; the Chidori Nagashi should have been able to cut through it in one swipe.

He'd just have to train harder. He only had two and a half years left until Orochimaru took over his body, and by then it would be too late.

Sasuke turned to the next dummy, and with a mighty swing, cut halfway through it.

II

Naruto awoke with a jaw-cracking yawn, and after a quick bath in the waterfall, decided to spend today at the library. He shuddered at the blasphemy, before pushing it aside. There were more important things to attend to.

An hour later saw him poring over a few scrolls that his clone had reserved a few days before. His eyes lit up finding the page he'd been specifically searching for; hot to determine his elemental affinity. His smile quickly fell when he realized what he'd need.

It took scrap of paper from a Chakra Tree, which would then process your chakra into one (or two or three) of the five affinity's. These would in turn produce different effects, of different levels depending on the strength of the affinity.

Deciding he might as well check the effects for future reference, he scanned them, stopping in shock when he reached the wind effect. Sliced in half, very rough to very fine depending on the strength of your affinity. Jeez, he'd had entire stack of extremely expensive elemental paper casually stuffed into his backpack and he hadn't even known it!

He grinned when he realized that the edge that his chakra had split had been sharp enough to give him a paper-cut. His mood once again did a one-eighty as he realized that he'd taken up refuge in a hidden village almost as horribly-suited for him than his own home in terms of affinities.

He later apologized to the librarian for the eerily forehead shaped groove in the table.

II

Itachi mused silently at the strangeness of the situation. Minato's child had taken up refuge in Iwa, and no one had even noticed he was anything out of the ordinary. The irony had his lip twitching. He was currently observing the young child as he practiced in the leaf cutting exercise. It was slow going, but he seemed to be making some progress.

That was perfectly fine with Itachi. In the circumstances of young Naruto, Kage Bunshin training would be a boon, but perhaps worse than the sharingan. The boy had always voiced that he hated the instant copying the sharingan supplied its user.

Kisame was somewhere in the minor towns, most likely massacring some bandits. The Ex-Mist Ninja had been itching for blood since they arrived in Earth Country. This would be the perfect time to capture the jinchurriki.

But never let it be said that Itachi didn't follow orders. And so he waited. He watched. And this time, a small smile graced his features.

II

Shizune warily opened the door, only to sigh sadly at the state of her sensei. She'd most likely drunk herself to sleep again, and Shizune was worried to see that her eyes were red and puffy. Shizune slowly entered the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

She cleaned things up, dusted a few portraits, and swept the remains of fragile items. When she finished organizing her paperwork and started looking for something else to clean, she realized she was stalling.

She turned once more to her sensei, and slowly shook her, whispering for her to wake up. The Kage's eyes cracked open, and she released a small groan.

"Shizune? What time is it?"

Shizune checked the clock behind the blonde's desk, "10:34 Tsunade-sama."

Tsunade waved off her assistant, stretching languidly and earning a few satisfying pops. Settling back down into her chair, the sennin regarded Shizune. "Schedule?"

Shizune smiled slightly, glad that her sensei seemed to be coping a bit better. Or she may have just forgotten, considering all the alcohol she'd consumed the last few days.

Either scenario was better than the overwhelming worry that had gripped their hearts, more-so Tsunade's, who was much more attached to the boy, since when Gamakichi had arrived

II

It had been a week since Naruto had started the leaf-cutting exercise, and he'd finished it two days ago. And while the Iwa library had a pathetic supply of Fuuton jutsu, he'd been able to find a particularly useful one.

It was a C-rank, Wind Release: Great Breakthrough. But despite its rank, it could become extremely powerful. He still had phantom pains in his back after that technique had blown him into a tree during the chunin exams.

So he was now standing in the clearing that he'd taken to reading in (in-between border patrol and coming and going Shinobi of course). He slowly flicked through the hand seals, once, twice, three times, going faster each time.

Digging his feet into the ground, he went through the signs, gathered chakra into his lungs, and released it.

The waterfall behind him didn't quite do the trick in cushioning his fall.

II

Two border-patrolmen froze. They turned to look at each other, and nodded. Both had felt that massive chakra spike. They quickly set off in the direction of the spike.

They reached a small clearing in minutes, and both took a moment to stare at the destruction. What sparse trees Iwa possessed had been viciously uprooted, and even the ground had many deep gouges in it. What kind of jutsu could cause this much destruction?

Both stretched their chakra sensing skills, and quickly discovered a large chakra source behind a nearby waterfall.

But before they could investigate, their eyesight got fuzzy for a moment, before clearing back up.

_Well, that was strange, _The first guard thought to himself, before turning back to the… the… what were they doing here again?

He gave his partner a questioning glance, who just shrugged in reply. Looking up, he saw the sun had almost set, which meant their shift was over.

Both chunin walked away, the first whistling a tune.

II

Itachi regarded the waterfall silently, before slowly making his way towards it. He'd long since turned the guards away with a genjutsu, so there was nobody around. He walked across the water and through the waterfall, stopping besides the boy.

After a few minutes the Uchiha reached into his cloak, pulling out a small book and dropping it beside the unconscious teen.

Making his way out, the young Akatsuki member met up with a tall, muscular looking man with a large sword wrapped in bandages strapped to his back.

"We're leaving, Kisame."

The sea-blue colored man nodded, and they disappeared.

II

Naruto groaned, slowly sitting up from his position on the cold, wet, floor. That blast must have sent him backwards with enough force to bring some of the waterfall into the cave with him. But when he opened his eyes, he saw not his camp, but a sewer.

_Oh great_, Naruto thought, _just what I need_.

Nevertheless he made his way through the path until he reached the chambers where his prisoner resided. What met him were to glaring eyes.

Those eyes got to him a lot more than he'd admit, but he stood strong. Both Bijuu and genin stared at each other in silence. The Kyuubi was once again the first to speak.

**You cannot be so reckless, ningen, **its words were tinged with annoyance.

**I'm warning you. This time you only suffered a few broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder, easily repairable, but you may not be so lucky next time.**

"Oh yeah?" Naruto spat sarcastically, "And what _can't _the great Kyuubi heal?"

The Kyuubi grinned menacingly down upon him.

**A headless body.**

And Naruto was again ejected from his mind.

II

**AN: **I know it isn't as long as the first one, but I was kind of inspired today, so there you go.

Now onto the matter of the Hyouton:

The reason I didn't give Naruto water as a _natural _affinity, was because it would mix with his wind affinity to create ice.

You can't combine a secondary element and a natural element to create an entirely different element (many would have done so), same with secondary and secondary. Only two natural affinities' that correspond to create a different element (Ice, Boil, Lava, Wood, etc.).

Hope that cleared some things up, and to any that are, don't worry. Naruto will be learning plenty of Suiton jutsu.

Thanks to all my readers. Please read and review.


	3. A sensei scorned

**Will of Fire, Heart of Rock**

**Disclaimer: **(Sobs in a corner)

**AN: **An anonymous reviewer has left a rather lengthy comment that I must say is a complete load of … help. Thanks murg, for straightening those things out for me. So if you think that my ideas on elemental training in general are skewed (which they are), then check the second to last page of reviews for a helpful explanation.

See? I can take criticism! Anyway, this is chapter three.

III

It had been three weeks exactly since Naruto had found that book on sealing lying next to him in what was quickly becoming 'his' cave. He'd studied the thing avidly, and was currently a quarter of the way through it.

He hadn't been able to practice anything on it yet, unfortunately. Jiraiya-sensei's bag hadn't had any Fuuin supplies in it, and his measly paycheck he'd received from Ko-san had barely been able to by him groceries yesterday.

He couldn't afford getting caught trying to steal anything, even if it was something as harmless as a pile of blank scrolls and ink. He could at least see where Iwa was coming from. A few seals had been all it had taken to decimate a good portion of their army.

So he was now reading up on chakra-suppression seals. Usually utilized on prisoners or enemies, Naruto had a different use for it; improving his chakra control.

His control _had _improved when the Kyuubi had withdrawn its youkai, but only by a small amount. By tattooing one of these onto himself, he'd be able to seal off a portion of his chakra. This would give him less overall chakra, which would be easier to manipulate, and an ace in the hole if he was ever running low. A win-win.

But he didn't have the necessary tools to make one, or the experience. So he'd have to settle for the training regime he'd created for himself.

Awake before dawn, create two reinforced bunshin, one to go into the village to work his job at the armory, and the other to search for more potential jobs. After all, he'd like some spending money for training equipment.

Ten laps around the village, then breakfast.

After that, he did various warm-ups, and had two hours of sparring with his clones. Then came the fun part.

Ninjutsu training, which lasted around three hours. He'd completed the Great Breakthrough technique a couple weeks ago. He'd gotten it down to a reasonable enough blast, but only after several more outcomes like the first. He'd decided to call the _much _more powerful version the Breath of Kami. It caused too much collateral damage, so he doubted he'd ever use it, when its younger brother was much more convenient.

He'd then learned the Mizu Bunshin. It may have seemed fairly worthless, since he already had the Kage Bunshin, but it consumed a significantly smaller amount than the forbidden Kinjutsu. So far he'd succeeded in creating ten. A very small number, considering the amounts he usually produced. But while the Mizu Bunshin took less chakra, it also required more control. Not as bad as the Bunshin, but enough that Naruto was having a fair bit of difficulty.

He was currently practicing with his second Suiton; Suiton: Suikodan no Jutsu (Water Release: Water Shark Missile Technique). He hadn't been having much success, but he'd at least been able to make the water rise, much like the Mizu Bunshin, although his didn't take shape.

After Ninjutsu practice he'd have a small dinner, before training in his chakra control.

Sleep. Repeat.

When he had spare time, he'd study, mostly the book on sealing.

And though it was slow going, Naruto could feel himself growing stronger. Without the Kyuubi, Ero-sensei (both of them), or anybody else.

III

Shizune eyed the Godaime apprehensively. They were both currently in the Hokage Tower, Tsunade seated in her usual spot and Shizune fidgeting next to her. Her shishou had just run her by what she planned to (because the Godaime Hokage of Konoha never _asks_), and it made her nervous.

"Ah, Tsunade-Sama, are you sure this is wise? Iruka-san is already very busy with teaching the academy students, and this may be too-," Tsunade held up her hand, silencing the younger medic.

"As much as I'd like to keep this between us, Shizune, he deserves to know. He's supported Naruto much longer than either of us. It would be cruel to keep this information from him."

Shizune shuffled her feet nervously.

There was a buzz, and the secretary's voice rang through the office.

"A mister Umino is here to see you, Hokage-sama."

The sennin grumbled an affirmative over the intercom and laced her fingers together, staring intensely at the door.

The scarred sensei slowly opened the door, and made his way so that he was standing in front of the only desk in the room.

"You called for me, Hokage-Sama?" There was some confusion in his eyes. He'd been in the middle of a class and wondered what was so important it couldn't have waited a few hours.

"Sit down Iruka," The man obliged, seating himself in a wooden chair.

"What I'm about to tell you is an S-class secret, punishable by death," if the situation weren't so serious it would have been funny how the chunin's eyes bugged out.

"If this information falls into the wrong hands, it could mean the death of you," Iruka gulped, "and Naruto," and then froze.

"I'm not gonna sugar-coat it, Umino, Naruto left."

Iruka (rather foolishly) spoke up, "Um, yes Hokage-Sama. He left with Jiraiya-sama for his three year training trip," the unspoken '_Remember?' _gave the sannin's eye a light tic.

"Do not interrupt me, chunin," Iruka wisely chose to shut up.

"What I'm _saying_, is that he left Jiraiya, and now we can't find him."

Iuka's back went rigid, his face morphed in shock. It was several moments before he spoke, and even then it was only a jumbled mess of questions.

"They were in a country north of Suna, and Jiraiya had been _busy_," the tic getting larger signified that the Hokage knew that was a lie, "and Naruto booked it."

The chunin sputtered some more, before he managed a (mostly) coherent sentence.

"Bu- What does this mean?" The poor man's mind still couldn't comprehend what he'd been told.

"Naruto's gone."

III

Ko observed his young trainee as he cleaned the forges, carefully judging his work. It had been nearly a month since he'd hired the kid, and he was rather impressed with the boy's determination. He hadn't once complained about any of the tedious tasks Ko had assigned him.

He mused that it wouldn't be too long before he started the boy on the art of the forge, though they'd start small of course. Things like blunt kunai and shuriken, easy stuff. Then they'd gradually work their way up to more delicate weapons, such as makibishi and senbon.

Naruto finished with the forge and proceeded outside to the back, where he began to break down and haul in coal, leaving Ko to his thoughts. That was one of the less… desirable traits of his. He never stopped asking questions. It wasn't that he minded, as a good student is expected to ask questions, but it got rather annoying after awhile.

His eyes narrowed when three blondes came walking in a straight line, dropping coal and heading back out. That was another thing, he could use jutsu. He'd at first been shocked to see the boy create several mizu bunshin one morning, splitting up his workload considerably.

He'd been almost entirely sure that he was a civilian, but civilian didn't have the chakra to make three bunshin, let alone mizu bunshin. It was the next day that he had asked the boy to show him how much chakra he possessed. The boy had been hesitant at first, but when he pointed out the blacksmith's with a lot of chakra could create better weapons, he'd been all too happy to comply.

What he'd found out had shocked him. The kid had a store of chakra that could rival a high-level genin. With some actual practice, he might be able to reach jounin-level reserves. When he'd informed him of this, he'd just chuckled bashfully and scratched the back of his neck at the indirect compliment.

Since then Ko had started teaching him some basic ninjutsu that would come in handy for when they started him on the real stuff. So far he'd taught him the Mizu Hosui, which allowed him to shoot a continuous stream of water from his mouth, perfect for dowsing a heated blade.

They were now working on the Usui Kareda, a technique which allowed the user to form a shield of water around oneself, which could protect them from fire. Very helpful if you didn't want to get scorched by stray sparks or the general heat of a working forge.

And then the boy was in front of him, staring up at him expectantly. Ko raised an eyebrow at him, and gave a questioning tilt of his head. The young boy nodded, and Ko motioned for him to follow as he headed for the counter.

Opening up the cash register, Ko counted out the number of bills to Naruto. Said blond took the money gratefully, bowing to the large man before hurrying off.

Ko shook his head, shutting off all the lights in the store and heading towards the back, where his bedroom was located. Making a small dinner, he quickly ate, musing on the blonde enigma he'd hired.

He was certainly interesting.

III

The real Naruto ambled through the darkened streets of Iwagakure, eyes intense and searching. Settled comfortably in his back pocket was a small stack of blank paper. He didn't quite feel right about what he was about to do, but he reasoned that Jiraiya had no use for the elemental slips anyway.

Entering a rather seedy looking pawn shop, Naruto made his way to the counter, watching the man behind it warily. His eye twitched when the man just continued reading the manga in his hands, not even acknowledging his presence.

He cleared his throat roughly, and the man looked up at him with a blank expression. Naruto almost winced at the number of piercings on his face, quietly thinking that they didn't look very comfortable.

Clearing his head, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the stack of elemental paper, placing it onto the glass counter before him. The man eyed the slips incredulously for a moment, before widening in realization.

"Are those-?" Naruto nodded his head in confirmation, grinning, as he most certainly had his attention now.

The man stared at them greedily for a moment, before suspicion clouded his eyes.

"I don't believe you," Naruto rolled his eyes and picked up a slip, channeling chakra through it and splitting it in half. Satisfaction coursed through him as the man's eyes widened comically.

Minutes later saw Naruto exiting the shop and whistling a merry tune, his pocket much fuller now due to Gama-chan's merciful plumpness. And he'd already spent the amount needed for groceries.

When he finally arrived back at his camp, his arms were full with several crisp scrolls, stiff brushes, and unopened ink blots. The clone beside him carried the groceries he bought. Mostly unspoilable goods, such as ramen.

Setting down all of his supplies with a sigh of relief, Naruto picked up the now worn book on sealing, and began going over the first seal of the book again. The bolded title read 'Storage Seals'.

III

Iruka sealed the final article of clothing into the scroll, standing up and slinging it across his back. He surveyed his apartment mutely. Quickly checking that all appliances had been turned off, he closed the door behind him, locking it, and heading out of the complex.

He made good time to the Hokage Tower, and waited in the lounge for a few minutes before the secretary waved him in. Giving a bow of thanks he walked in to the spacious room.

He met the grave eyes of his Hokage, but did not flinch. He could not show weakness now, he had to be strong.

"Are you sure about this, Umino-san?" He nodded, saying nothing verbally. They shared a small battle of wills, both staring straight into the others eyes.

Iruka looked away.

Tsunade heaved a heavy sigh and rubbed her temples, "You have a year, got it? After that you'll be branded a Nuke-nin."

Silence rung throughout the room, and the Hokage finally nodded and went back to her paperwork.

"You're dismissed."

The scarred chunin left the Hokage Tower, left the town square, left the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Soon, he'd be leaving Fire Country, all because of one insignificant genin. His objective was clear, and he had no delusions about what it entailed.

The hunched form of Umino Iruka marched through the forests of Fire Country.

III

Naruto had taken to sealing like a fish to water. After carefully going over the instructions to the storage seal, he figured he'd give it a try. He'd decided that he didn't want to waste his scrolls on a measly storage seal, so he'd visited the library to find out if there were any other kinds of objects he _could _seal things into. The results shocked him.

Practically any solid object out there could be branded with a seal, even a human. Though that much was obvious, he thought wryly, an image of the large spiraling swirl on his stomach coming to mind. Upon discovering this, he'd eagerly looked for information on how to tattoo a seal onto himself.

After all, what use was a seal that could get washed off with some water? None, Naruto decided, especially when considering that the objects stored in the seals could just vanish, never to be seen again.

He'd found out it was relatively simple, involving the blood of the person whom the seal was being placed on, some regular old ink, and some chakra.

He'd spent the next hour carefully constructing the seal, the black ink of the construct contrasting greatly with the tan skin of his left shoulder. He'd then sealed the scrolls and extra brushes/ink. It had given him an idea.

He could craft another storage seal, using a scroll this time, and keep any groceries he bought in it. Seeing as said seal kept its inhabitants in suspended animation, the goods wouldn't spoil or rot. It was a brilliant idea, so Naruto decided that next time he went shopping he'd buy some fruits and vegetables.

Back to the present, we find the young genin trying to construct a chakra restraining seal. Understandably, he was having a fair amount of trouble, since chakra was radically different than something like a blank scroll. Deciding he'd cut his losses, Naruto spent the next several minutes eating dinner, before moving on to his chakra control training.

The familiar glee that usually accompanied training was not present in the face of such a grueling regime.

III

Once his mind had cleared enough that he could think a bit more clearly, Iruka quickly found a map of the elemental nations, and went over his options. There could be entire countries between him and Naruto, or a mere couple of towns, but he'd have to have a place to start.

Quickly scanning the countries surrounding the area Tsunade had mentioned they'd been, Iruka came up with several potential starting points. The first, Wind Country, he quickly ruled out. Because even though Naruto rarely exercised common sense, Iruka himself had beaten into him the importance of keeping hydrated, and there was no way the kid could navigate the deserts of said country with enough fluids to keep himself alive, and he knew it.

The next two, Bird Country and a nameless land mass, he also ruled out. Those two countries weren't very well-known, thus one would think the blonde rogue would stay in one of the two to lay low. Well, that _would _be the case, but he was looking for Naruto. Not somebody sensible like Sakura.

Naruto would be in the place you least expected him, because that would rule out you even considering the possibility, leaving him completely hidden. Too bad for him Iruka knew how he thought.

Iruka's eyes scanned the map again. That meant he would be…

Iruka groaned and rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. Of course he'd be there.

"Kami damn it, Naruto…"

III

Naruto sneezed violently, causing him to lose his footing and tumble into the waters below. Grumbling he scrambled out, rubbing his nose agitatedly. Damn it, as if his chakra control exercises weren't difficult enough without all this sneezing.

Mentally waving the thought away, he got back to his modified and much more difficult version of tree (or in this case rock) walking. He turned his attention to the vertical slab of damp, slippery rock that the waterfall was constantly eroding.

He'd get this, or his name wasn't Uzumaki Naruto!

III

Far, far away, in hidden chambers that nobody but a select few knew about lay the body of the Sandaime. His eternal resting place. Dozens of seals were present on his body and clothing, preserving them for what could be centuries if he wasn't disturbed.

And in the darkness of the small room, one might swear his still face had twitched in what some would call an expression of sheepishness.

III

It was one of those rare times where he could relax. Unwind, and just think about things, a strange thought to all that knew him. He didn't feel like studying up on the sealing book, and he had just finished his chakra control training.

It was too late to go into the village and do some studying, so he just stared into the small fire he'd prepared to cook his ramen. It had been approximately a month since he'd arrived here, and he'd already progressed far.

He'd learned three Suiton jutsu and was in the process of learning a fourth, he'd learned a _very _powerful Fuuton jutsu, though it may have just been because of his high reserves and affinity that it was so powerful. His clone hadn't done much in regards to his job at the armory, but Ko-sensei had told him they'd begin forging blunted weapons soon, which was a start.

Combined with the fact that he'd been training constantly, and the absence of any conflicting youkai, his chakra control had slowly but surely been rising. He guessed it to be at the level of a chunin at this point. In any other shinobi's eyes, it wouldn't have been anything to boast about, above-average for his ranking, but nothing too special considering all of his previous feats. To Naruto, though, it was a huge improvement.

At this rate he'd be able to kick Sasuke's ass in no-time!

And once again the thought of his ex-teammate gave him pause. While he was on his own, Sasuke was being taught by a sannin. A very vile sannin at that. He'd seen first-hand what that curse-seal could do, and when combined with Kakashi-sensei's chidori, well… It didn't tickle.

And since he'd refused to use the Kyuubi's youkai from here on out, he'd need an ace in the hole if and when he came across his rival. The rasengan was all well and good, but a curse-seal Chidori would match it just fine.

Naruto frowned in consideration, what he'd been learning was good and he had no doubt it would help him in his ninja career, but he'd need a real powerhouse of a jutsu to even things up. Especially when taking Akatsuki into account. His eyes glinted mischievously, as that was his specialty.

From what he knew about Sasuke, he, like all Uchiha, had a preference for Katon jutsu. But Naruto had no doubt that he would have some powerful Raiton jutsu in his arsenal when they next faced off. Naruto couldn't count on there being a body of water nearby, so he'd have to factor out his Suiton jutsu.

That left him with his Fuuton jutsu, and the rasengan.

He was very lucky that the curtain of water in front of his cave blocked out any smoke that could potentially reveal his location, as the amount pouring from his ears would have surely given him away to the entire village.

III

Sasuke eyed the surrounding men warily, his hand settled comfortably on the hilt of his blade, still sheathed at his waist. It had been a couple minutes, and the entire clearing was still. As if the surrounding wildlife was pausing in its daily festivities this epic battle of wills.

Or maybe it was because of all the Katon jutsu he'd been practicing in this area.

Regardless, the eerily silent clearing could not remain so forever. The circle of men tensed, and then sprung at the young raven.

He drew his blade in an instant, electricity screaming to life on the straight edge. He spun quickly, separating one man's head from his shoulders.

One.

Continuing with the momentum of the spin, and slashed upward, leaving a deep cut on another's torso and paralyzing him completely.

Two.

Jumping high into the air he somersaulted above another man. He came down with a crushing sledgehammer of a kick to his neck, easily breaking it.

Three.

Ducking just in time, Sasuke was given a rather messy haircut by a sword-wielding giant of a man. Sweeping his legs from him, Sasuke simultaneously brought his blade up, severing the giant's head.

Four.

He scanned the surrounding area carefully, crimson eyes zeroing in on a large tree. Seeing he'd been spotted, the man hiding in it quickly jumped down, facing Sasuke solemnly. He possessed large brass knuckles that did not seem to hinder him at all.

They engaged in a brief exchange of strikes, both combatants' weapons canceling each other out. Spotting an opening, the raven quickly ducked a roundhouse from one of the knuckles, parrying another with his blade. He threw the man's arm wide, leaving him vulnerable.

The chidori was already crackling in his hands, his arm thrusting forward. The man's corpse hung onto the young man's arm, and he withdrew it with a disgusted grunt.

And five.

He spat at the small group of bandits that Orochimaru had brought to him for his training. Pathetic.

Clapping filled the room as a certain sannin sauntered in, surveying the work of his apprentice.

"Very good, Sasuke-kun. Very good, kukuku…"

Sasuke shivered.

III

Naruto hunched over one of his previously blank scrolls, scribbling numerous notes on the paper along with the basic concept of the rasengan. He chewed on the wooden end of his brush thoughtfully, adding a few extra notes, before rolling up the scroll and sealing it away with a sigh.

What he planned to create was something he'd never thought to consider before. But with the immense power of Akatsuki breathing down his neck and the increasing power of his 'brother' he realized that, if he could pull it off, that this technique would play a key part in his near future.

He was going to complete the rasengan. A crazy idea, considering the already substantial amount of power behind the thing, but he'd recently recognized it for what it was. A blank slate.

He pondered how he would go about doing it. He'd of course have to work on his elemental manipulation quite a bit, as the needed control over the volatile nature was something he most certainly did not possess. Yet.

He had trouble sleeping that night, plans for his new technique swirling around his head like a maelstrom.

III

**AN: **Hey there everyone, sorry for the wait. I'm going to be using these next couple chapters to flesh things out, and then we can get to the fun stuff. There will be a few time skips, but none of that - Three Years Later - crap. I highly doubt I'll make one longer than a year.

Anyway, I'm feeling okay about this one. Nothing special, but this story _is _still in its beginning stages. So thanks to all my readers and those that have made my story a favorite or put it on their alert list.

**Jutsu List:**

**Mizu Hosui no jutsu – D-rank – Suiton**

(Water Hose technique) The user fires a continuous stream of water from their mouth. Higher ranking shinobi can invest more chakra into the technique and fire it as a powerful beam of water that can hit the target with great impact and/or cancel out high ranking Katon techniques.

**Usui Kareda no jutsu – D-rank – Suiton**

(Water Body technique) A technique used to cover the user's body in water and shield them from fire of all sorts. Technique requires a nearby source of water, though when enforced with more chakra (and thus water) it can protect from a variety of things.


	4. A Brother Found

**Will of Fire, Heart of Rock**

**Disclaimer: **Well, fuck.

**AN: **Got another review questioning my knowledge on elemental stuff. They said something along the lines of Naruto not being able to use elemental jutsu because he hadn't completed the exercises. This, pardon my French, is bullshit.

I'd be willing to bet you that Sasuke hadn't even done a minutes worth of said training before the final stage of the chunin exams (_ if _then) and he still knew a load of Katon jutsu. Anyway, here's the fourth chapter.

IV

A dull hum filled the air, shining metal flashing in the sun. A sharp crack echoed as whatever it was impacted, leaving the object lodged in the frail wood of a training dummy. Naruto walked up to the log, inspecting the damage critically, before giving a slight shake of his head.

Dislodging the blunt kunai, he walked back to his position, and closed his eyes tightly in concentration. A light breeze blew about him, caressing his body, winding its way around him. The wispy strands wound their way up to the kunai, before seemingly disappearing.

Naruto threw it into the dummy once more.

A couple more hours of such exercises saw Naruto leaving the training grounds and making his way towards a small park. He sat down on a bench, and relaxed. Minutes later a shadow blocked the sun from his resting eyes, and he cracked them open. Holding out his hand, he nodded when the bunshin dropped the small wad into his hands before disappearing.

He was in his 'home' minutes later, thanks to a few rapid shunshin's. He picked up a medium sized scroll and inspected the seal on it, before channeling some chakra through it. The customary smoke exploded outward, revealing a package of rice, various vegetables, and a small hunk of meat.

Whistling a little tune, Naruto began chopping up meat and vegetables, his hand gripping nothing as he sliced through the ingredients. It was one of the more useful things he'd learned to do with the wind, he mused thoughtfully.

He finished the preparation, dispelling his wind blade with a slight wave of his hand. Taking the small cutting board he'd purchased, he walked over to the boiling pot of water settled over his fire and dumped the veggies and meat slices in, along with the package of rice.

Sitting down on his small cot, he got into a meditating position. He breathed deeply, allowing things around him to gradually fade away. He opened his eyes, and was greeted with the sight of an enormous sea of bright blue.

Naruto stared out at the overwhelming blue in a form of awe, as he always did, before kneeling in front of the 'water' and dipped his hand in.

He immediately felt a shock go through him, the 'water' rushing up his arm and incasing his body in its bright glow. He closed his eyes, reveling in the feeling. He spread out his senses, _felt _the surrounding energy. A small sigh blew through his lips, and he opened his eyes a crack.

He glared balefully at the strands of crimson weaving with the blue throughout his body. He drew his hands together in the ram seal.

"Kai."

The blue exploded outwards.

Naruto stood up from his cot, picking up the pot and emptying its contents in a plain looking bowl. Grabbing a pair of chopsticks, he muttered a small "Itadakimasu" and began to eat his rather plain meal, the soft glow of the fire shadowing his munching face.

This had become routine. His training regime had remained mostly the same, save for a few minor changes, the most prominent being that he'd substituted chakra control training for wind element exercises.

He'd taken to doing his wind training inside the village, seeing as there weren't any objects to train his affinity on in his little camp area. It had also made getting his pay easier, as now he didn't have to reinforce his kage bunshin with even _more _chakra so it'd have time to make it over the mountains.

This had led him to acquire the shunshin, one of the few D-ranks he was grateful he'd taken the time to learn. Seeing as he couldn't afford to waste hours every day to get to the village and back, he'd invested his time in finding a technique to cut down on that time.

Chewing the last piece of meat, he took a moment to savor the juices. He stood up, and made his way to the entrance of his cave. He dipped the bowl under the gushing waterfall, wiping clean the little pieces of rice and juice that had remained in the dish.

He touched his index and middle finger to his shoulder, channeling a small amount of chakra. Grabbing the fuuin materials that emerged from the seal, he sat himself on a smooth area of rock. Grabbing the small book on sealing from his cot, he studied the seal in the book, and then the one already on the scroll.

After a few moments of inspection, he nodded, ripping the seal off of the scroll. He channeled some chakra into the seal, as to 'activate' it, and watched it glowed a bright blue. He then removed his jacket and mesh shirt, and slapped the glowing piece of paper onto his chest.

Immediately he felt a small tug in his stomach, and then a sort of relaxing feeling. The seal on his chest grew brighter, making it almost painful to look at. He held his hand out, and a swirling ball of chakra formed in it.

That had been easier than usual, Naruto mused with a grin. He quickly channeled some more chakra into his shoulder, a small dish and scalpel popping out. He then summoned a kage bunshin, and gestured to the materials and his back.

The clone nodded, grabbing the scalpel and holding the originals wrist over the dish. Several minutes of careful work later saw Naruto dispelling the clone, the new tattoo on his back glowing brightly with contained chakra.

_Success._

IX

Iruka flipped the small sign so that it read 'closed'. He got back behind the counter, checking the register and totaling up the days earnings. He untied the small apron that he was required to wear throughout the day, hanging it on a small hook.

He trudged down the streets of Iwa, making his way to his small apartment. He unlocked the door, going straight to his bedroom. He grabbed a small marker located on his windowsill, crossing off a small box on his calendar.

Ninety-two days. Sixty-one days of fruitless searching in this Kami-forsaken village. He couldn't afford to waste time like this. He had already wasted a fourth of his time, without a single clue as to where his student was.

It was time to leave; it seems his assumption had been wrong. He'd sealed his belongings away, and informed his employer Matsura-san that he was leaving the village. His next destination would be Suna.

By the time he'd made it over the mountains, night had long since fallen. The silence of night allowed him to think, perhaps a little too deeply. As such, he missed the soft glow that could just barely be seen behind a small waterfall.

IX

Two figures stood before a man shrouded in shadows. His ringed eyes bore into the two, but neither reacted. His eyes closed, his face expressing an eerie sort of peace. They snapped open a moment later, causing both figures to tense ever so slightly.

"Deidara, Sasori, you are both to travel to Iwa and capture the Gobi by any means necessary. You have one month to complete this task and return here for the extraction. Dismissed."

Both figures inclined their heads minutely, disappearing in twin flashes of chakra.

Pain eyed the area they'd been moments before. His Rinnegan traced the path their shunshin's had taken them. Turning, he silently made his way down the dark corridors of the Akatsuki's temporary dwelling.

IX

Naruto sat on his cot silently, contemplating something that had been troubling him for a while now. Tsunade would be very worried about him at this point, letter or not. He wanted to contact her and let her know he was okay, but he knew she'd take him back by force as soon as she knew his location.

He couldn't go back to being 'trained' by Jiraiya or Kakashi. He was finally starting to make progress, and he was getting further interested in the art of sealing every day. Jiraiya-sensei was said to be one of the greatest seal masters in the world, but he was quite frankly one of the worst teachers out there.

He spent a few more minutes agonizing over what to do, before an idea made itself known. He hummed thoughtfully, weighing the pros and cons. Finally, he just shrugged, making a few hand seals and biting down on his thumb.

"Kuchiyose no jutsu."

He slammed his hand to the smooth rock of the cave, smoke erupting from the small pattern of seals that materialized on the ground. A rather large toad, all things considered, emerged from the smoke. By the annoyed expression on its face it wasn't happy about being summoned.

"Listen Ero-Jiraiya, I'm tired of being your messenger toad. I wanna find Niisan just as much as you, but a toad needs some rest every now and again." The toad had its head turned to the side and its arms crossed petulantly. It decided to give the old ecchi one last glare before dispersing.

The toad froze when its eyes landed on its summoner. Naruto smiled at the stunned summon, waving slightly.

"Hey 'Kichi," anything else he'd have liked to say was cut off by the toad attaching itself to his face, blabbering on about how everybody was looking for him and what Tsunade was going to do to Jiraiya. This, while disturbing to Naruto as he was a healthy male, still brought a smile to his face.

"Calm down 'Kichi. I need a favor from you, feel like being messenger toad for me?" He grinned when the small toad nodded eagerly, now seated on the small cot, and thankfully not his face.

"O'course, Nissan! Whaddya need?" Naruto took on a serious expression.

"Before I tell you, I need your word that you won't tell anyone where I am. You can tell the other toads, but just make sure nobody in this realm finds me. Think you can do that for me?" Gamakichi hesitated for a moment, before slowly shaking his head in the affirmative.

"Great. Now I want you to relay this message to Tsunade…"

IX

"…Nobody has discovered my location, and my training is progressing swiftly. I can't tell you my location, and Gamakichi has given me his word he won't disclose it to anyone. With Gamakichi is a scroll detailing all of my training and achievements thus far. I still plan on returning to Konoha in two years and two months. Yours truly, Uzumaki Naruto."

Tsunade stared at the small toad stupidly, her mind not quite comprehending what she'd just heard. Her eye twitched suddenly.

"This isn't just some scheme by Jiraiya to calm me down, is it?" Her tone was threatening and the toad wasted no time in replying in the negative. Tsunade gained a thoughtful expression.

"And I don't suppose anything will… _persuade _you to tell me Naruto's location?" The toad shook his head. He grinned a cheeky, toothless grin.

"Nope, and if you try anything I'll just return to my realm with this." He waved a rather large scroll in the air. The one Naruto had talked about in his message. Tsunade sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

She finally nodded and the toad hopped up onto her desk, depositing the scroll and quickly dispelling. No need to give the scary woman a chance to do… anything really. Ero-Jiraiya was right, that chick was scary.

Tsunade unrolled the scroll, pausing in surprise at the amount of writing. It seemed the gaki hadn't been kidding about how much he'd learned. She smiled at the thought, paging her secretary and instructing her to cancel all of her appointments.

The council would give her hell later, but it would be worth it.

IX

Han accepted the large amount of bills from the administrative desk, dropping his mission report in front of the meek assistant of the Tsuchikage. Another dull mission, he mused dryly, walking down the streets of Iwa. His eyed the passing civilians with disdain, mentally scoffing at how they 'subtly' edged away from him.

He passed training grounds four, five, and six, before coming to an abrupt halt at seven. That energy… His eyes widened. That was Bijuu youkai, his mind acknowledged. Faint, yes, but still. The only other jinchurriki of Iwa had been captured years ago.

His curiosity, a regrettable trait all things considered, eventually got the best of him. He made his way into the large training ground, spotting a short blonde kid throwing blunt kunai at a training dummy. He mentally sighed at the stupidity of the kid, but was then surprised when the kunai lodged itself into the wood up to its hilt.

Han concentrated on the next one the kid threw, and noticed faint traces of wind nature chakra surrounding the kunai. Interesting. There were hardly any wind users in Iwa beside himself.

Han observed the kid for a few more minutes, before he silently withdrew a kunai from his armor. Channeling wind chakra, he gave it a light flick. The kunai shot forward like a bullet, whizzing past the blonde's head and into the training dummy. It then shot out of the back of the dummy, into the tree situated behind the dummy, and then out of the back of that tree. The kunai finally stopped in the second tree, up to its hilt.

Naruto stared dumbfounded at the normal looking kunai. Quickly coming to his senses, he spun around, a rasengan blooming to life in his palm. He paled upon seeing a giant of a man staring down at him with a look that was somewhere between contemplation and amusement.

The bottom half of his face, along with the rest of his body downward was covered in solid-looking red armor. He was wearing what looked like a straw hat, though that didn't seem very likely as it was shining and the edges of it looked decidedly sharp.

"Which one do you contain, boy?" The man's deep voice startled Naruto from his thoughts. He allowed the rasengan to completely form, a high-pitched thrum emitting from the swirling ball of death. His eyes became guarded.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Naruto said coldly. Han meanwhile was eyeing the swirling blue ball in interest. The rasengan, he mused. Quite a powerful technique, one that Iwa had been trying to get its hands on for over a decade.

"Don't lie to me, boy. I can sense the trace of youkai in your system. I know it quite well." Naruto tensed at the last statement, eyeing the man distrustfully.

"You… You're a jinchurriki?" A mirthless chuckle escaped the giant man's mouth.

"Yes, I hold the Gobi (Five-tails). My name is Han, what is yours?" Naruto hesitated, before sighing in defeat. He doubted he could have escaped even if the man _hadn't _been a jinchurriki, but now he was definitely screwed. His life was in this man's hand now, he thought sourly, the rasengan dispersing.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto, and… I hold the Kyuubi." Han's eyes widened in shock; this child held the Kyuubi, Lord of demons. Interesting indeed.

"Well, Uzumaki Naruto of _Konoha_," The genin winced, "Why don't give me one good reason why I shouldn't turn you into the Tsuchikage right now."

Naruto paled, racking his brain frantically for anything he could offer. His eyes lit up.

"Alright, I've got something that interests you specifically, as a jinchurriki," Han raised an eyebrow at the kid curiously. Deciding to humor the kid, he nodded.

"Okay, this information is classified as an S-class secret, so you'd better listen up. There's an organization called Akatsuki…"

IX

Iruka kneeled before the Kazekage, a small bead of sweat rolling down his neck. He'd decided that as soon as he got to Suna he'd inform the Kazekage of the situation. It was only fair after all, seeing as young Gaara was one of Naruto's closest friends, and a very powerful ally.

Throughout his entire retelling, the young Kage hadn't budged an inch, nor given away his thoughts with a single twitch in his expression. The perfect poker face. His two siblings on the other hand, had clear expressions of worry on their faces. They weren't sure how their brother would react if his one true friend was lost from him.

A few minutes of awkward silence passed, before the Kazekage abruptly stood up. He shed his robe and hat, leaving him in his battle gear. He turned to his anxious sister and assistant.

"Temari, I am taking a leave of absence, while I am gone you will handle the affairs of Kazekage." Temari stared in shock, quickly opening her mouth to protest, but was promptly cut off.

"That is an order, Temari." His eyes narrowed just the slightest bit, but it was enough for his two siblings to get the picture. They quickly nodded; sweat rolling down both of their necks. Gaara nodded, walking towards the door.

"Come Umino-san, we will replenish your supplies and begin the search for Uzumaki Naruto," Iruka quickly followed after the young shinobi, not quite believing his luck. Thirteen years old or not, a Kage would make this search much more possible.

This particular Kage's abilities would also make it easier to bare the massive deserts of Wind Country. Iruka sighed in relief, thank Kami for small mercies.

An hour later found the two rather odd looking pair leaving the gates of Suna, the guards bowing in respect to their leader. Like Iruka had predicted, the trip out of the massive deserts of Wind was much easier. An invisible barrier surrounded them, protecting both from the constant stream of sand circulating through the air.

Iruka nodded in thanks to the young jinchurriki, who merely inclined his head. It took them a couple days going at a comfortable pace to reach Bird Country. They rented a small room with two beds, a kitchenette, and a bathroom.

Gaara sat down on one of the chairs gesturing for Iruka to do the same. He gave the chunin an expectant look, to which he gave a small 'oh' and grabbed his scroll. Unsealing a map of the elemental nations, he spread it out on the table.

They spent most of the night coming up with a plan of action. The rest of Iruka spent asleep, while Gaara stared up at the shining crescent moon.

_Where are you, Uzumaki Naruto?_

IX

Han observed his pseudo-apprentice intently. After the young blonde had told him of this 'Akatsuki', he'd decided to teach him a few things. After all, while humanity in general sickened him, this child seemed to have experienced everything he had and more.

He couldn't in good conscience forsake one of his 'brothers'. And this Akatsuki sounded very formidable, especially if one of its members was Deidara. It couldn't hurt to teach the kid a few jutsu, and it wouldn't be too hard as he already had a wind affinity. He also possessed some Suiton and a Doton, along with the kage bunshin and rasengan.

His taijutsu was pitiful, but in an unorthodox way it seemed to work for the child. In one of the spars they'd had so that Han could test his abilities, the kid had actually managed to land a hit on him.

He'd thrown the kid by his foot at the rock walls of the waterfall he'd been living in, and he'd actually rolled with the impact and surprised Han by bursting through the curtain of water with a powerful kick that hurt twice as much as it should have due to his wooden geta.

Perhaps he should invest in a pair; they were certainly useful in combat situations, as the boy had shown more than once…

He was getting off topic though. He currently had him trying to 'cut' the small waterfall with his wind chakra. He hadn't been making much progress at all though, which was surprising as the kid should have been doing this fairly quickly with the help of his kage bunshin.

Speaking of which…

"Hey kid," Naruto turned around, cocking his head to the side questioningly.

"Yes, Han-sensei?" Han contemplated the familiar term of address for a moment, before shrugging it off.

"Why aren't you using your kage bunshin?" Naruto looked confusedly at his fellow jinchurriki.

"Why would I?" Han stared at him. He could create hundreds of the damn things and he didn't even know what they were capable of? Han sighed tiredly, gesturing for his pupil to come over.

"Now kid, what you have to understand is that kage bunshin is B-ranked for a reason, and not just because of the amount of chakra it requires…"

IX

Deep within the confines of a certain genin's mind, the Kyuubi was working towards its own agenda. It would be amusing to see how easily the gaki would be defeated by Madara. And when he most needed it, Kyuubi would be there, lending him power.

Of course, the seal would need to be weakened a bit before this could happen. Which led it to what it was currently doing, forcing the seal open. It wasn't as simple as that, obviously, and nothing noticeable would change for years to come.

But it was slowly forcing the seal to convert its chakra faster and in larger quantities. It was a delicate procedure, and if Kyuubi added too much the gaki might notice and go to the old seal master. And while he wasn't nearly as skilled in the art as the Yondaime, Kyuubi wasn't willing to risk all of its work being undone.

The goal was to 'stretch' the seal to allow more and more of its chakra. Part of the seals effect was that after a certain point, trying to force its chakra through was a fruitless endeavor. The more Kyuubi loosened the seal, the more raw chakra could be forced through.

Kyuubi wasn't aiming for that right now, though. No, it was only putting out enough so that its chakra was constantly filtered, just enough to make the 'gap' in the seal wider.

And when the gaki finally needed Kyuubi's help, it would of course oblige for its _dear _container. Kyuubi just hoped that it didn't overdo it when the time came, after all, it _did _have a lot of chakra at its disposal.

The ominous chuckles of the Kyuubi went unheard.

IX

Sasuke kneeled before the figure of Orochimaru, his head slightly bowed, but his eyes still staring defiantly into the Hebi Sannin's. "You called for me, Sensei?" Orochimaru chuckled.

"Why yes, Sasuke-kun, I did. Stand up." The young Uchiha happily obliged, standing at his full height, which was admittedly not very tall.

"I have called you here, Sasuke-kun, because of a rather interesting piece of information our spies at the border have managed to retrieve," Sasuke's stare dimmed, the excitement at the prospect of another assignment dying down. Seeing his uninterested gaze, Orochimaru clucked his tongue disapprovingly. That wouldn't do.

"It's information on your young friend, Uzumaki Naruto," Orochimaru found it rather amusing how quickly he'd gained his apprentices attention.

"Yes, it seems he's escaped from Jiraiya-chan's care," Sasuke's eyes widened at the implications. Naruto no longer had the protection of a Sannin. He could find him, and test the things he'd learned under Orochimaru's tutelage. He could test his skill on a worthy opponent.

Orochimaru chuckled again, seeing the building excitement in the young Uchiha's eyes, which had subconsciously been activated to their doujutsu.

"I assume you'd like to have a little rematch with your ex-teammate?" The young Uchiha nodded, a small smirk gracing his features.

"Very well, Sasuke-kun. In four months time, I will allow you to seek out your young friend. For now, we must prepare."

IX

**AN: **Finally done. Sorry for the wait, I ran into some writers block concerning this chapter. To any confused, approximately ten months have passed since Naruto left Konoha with Jiraiya.

So how many of you expected me to bring Han into the story? I didn't really think about him that much, but I was researching Iwa and he came up, so I decided to add him in.

Naruto's personality at this point as many have noticed has become a lot more subdued. He hasn't had much human contact for months, and his main focus has been improving himself. This doesn't leave much room for anything else.

I've decided to put up a poll, as I plan on putting a pairing in this story. I apologize if this turns some of my viewers off to this story, but it isn't going to overcome the story.

I hope you're all enjoying this story, please Read and Review.


	5. Anticipation

**Will of Fire, Heart of Rock**

**Disclaimer: **I was waiting for Wal-Mart to make it a rollback...

**AN: **I've been mixing up the terms 'Sannin' and 'Sennin'. I'm pretty sure the first one is the term given to Orochimaru, Jiraiya, and Tsunade, and the latter referring to Jiraiya and Naruto.

Sorry for any confusion. But really, most if not all of you should know what I mean. This fanfic will not feature any snake or slug sage modes. So anyway, on to chapter five.

X

In a now rare display of childishness, Naruto petulantly wailed as his temporary 'Sensei' tossed his clothes into the fire. The only thing the giant Iwa-nin hadn't burned was his pair of wooden geta, and his boxers.

Han had decided not two days into his training of the kid that the orange jumpsuit wasn't going to fly. As if having an enormous natural disaster sealed into your stomach wasn't enough of a target. Damn kid must be a masochist. And being the 'caring' mentor he was, he'd decided to help the gaki get rid of the eyesores.

Which led them to this situation. The nearly nude teenager sitting defiantly on his cot, head turned away from the set of combat clothes Han had bought with his money. Han shrugged, it wasn't as if he really cared about the kid past making sure he survived. Besides, he'd have to come out of his cave sometime. And from the little time he'd been training the kid, he'd already gathered that his chakra control sucked, so that meant he probably wouldn't attempt a henge. Mind made up, Han walked out of the cave, returning to his home where he prepared for his next mission.

Meanwhile Naruto stared mournfully into the fire, tricking himself into believing he could still see some strands of bright orange cloth dancing with the flames. Naruto sighed, as much as he hated it, he'd have to head to the village sometime. Without his favorite jumpsuit.

Naruto spent the next few minutes grumbling about sadistic jinchurriki and their criminal hatred of the color orange. Finally managing to squeeze into the last article of clothing, he jumped out of the waterfall, and observed his reflection in the water. It was, like Han-sensei's getup, mostly red. An unseen black mesh undershirt, with a sheet of metal armor covering his torso. A pair of comfortable black pants that had been taped around the ankles. These too were covered by pieces of red metal armor.

The only thing that differentiated him from Han-sensei was the lack of a hat, face mask and vest, and his geta. He glanced down at said pair of wooden footwair. A small lightbulb lit off above his head, and he hurried back into his cave.

Minutes later he emerged, his 'new' pair of geta blending right in with his armor. He studied his reflection once more, grinning in satisfaction. He looked badass.

Suddenly Naruto didn't miss his jumpsuit all that much.

X

The only sound that eminated in the room was the haggered breathing of a figure located in the center of the training ground. The shadowed figure was turning in a slow circle, its crimson eyes glowing in the dark room. The figure siddenly tensed, and the room was lit up with the fire it had blown from its mouth.

Another shadow darted from the area the fire had hit, expertly sliding around the figure with the red eyes, which took a wild slash with its crackling blade. This was repeated several times, different techniques and combinations, all in vain.

Dozens ofshadowy creatures burst from the red-eyed figure's blind spot, wrapping it in a tight grip and suspending it high in the air. Both hands were wrapped by individual shadows, lest the red-eyed figure attempt another jutsu.

A tall man with glowing golden eyes emerged from the corner of room the shadows had attacked, sick amusement sparckling in the melevolent orbs. The man snapped his fingers, and several torches came to life, illuminating the dozens of snakes entrapping one Uchiha Sasuke.

"Kukuku... You are quite skilled Sasuke-kun, but I fear your power may not be enough to defeat the Kyuubi's container." Sasuke's eyes narrowed at the jibe towards his ability.

"But do not fret, my young apprentice. Your bloodline is the perfect counter to young Uzumaki-kun. However it will take much training to bring this ability to an acceptable level," Orochimari grinned cruely.

"But when you have mastered this ability, you shall be able to wield the Kyuubi and its chakra like a master does his pet," Sasuke's eyes glinted in anticipation. All of the chakra the dobe had used against him in the valley of the end, and much more if the legends were to be believed.

He would relish in the dobe's shocked face when he made it disappear.

X

Swipe, slash, stab. Swipe, slash, stab. Swipe, slash, sta-.

The broken chunks of woods fell to the ground at Naruto's feet, who in turn allowed the near invisible wind sword in his hand to be dispersed. One of the excersises Han-sensei had given him, along with cutting that damn waterfall.

The blade wasn't anywhere near where he wanted it yet; it could cut through things like wood, sure. But that was only after several minutes of hacking and slashing. What he could create right now was something akin to a blunt katana.

Naruto wiped the sweat quickly gathering on his forhead. It looked cool, and seemed very practical, but this stupid armor of his was hotter than a bitch in heat. Naruto glared hatefully at the risen sun, which only seemed to make it pulse brighter. Stupid thing was laughing at him.

Making his way to training ground seven, his and Han-sensei's unofficial sparring ground, Naruto absently wondered how Tsunade had reacted to his messege. Probably hilariously, Naruto thought mirthfully to himself. Too bad he couldn't have come with Gamakichi, but he couldn't risk being immidiatley detained by the Anbu guards.

If they got him in the village again, they'd never let him leave, especially not to visit his jinchurriki-mentor from Iwa. Yeah, that'd go over well with the Konoha Council, Naruto mused dryly to himself.

Speaking of mentors, Naruto had just arrived to the training ground to find it deserted. That would mean that today was... Fuck.

The several dozen kunai and shruiken that lodged themselves into the tree where his head had been resting a second ago seemed to agree with him.

X

Tsunade observed the team of Anbu gathered in front of her desk. Cat, Raven, Lion, and Bear. She cleared her throat, "Your mission is to locate Jiraiya and bring him back to Konoha. Use force if necessary," The four Anbu bowed, vanishing in swirls of leaves that had appeared from Kami knows where.

They'd been given the perfect way to keep in contact with Naruto. If only that little gaki of a toad had stayed. Now she'd have to wait until Jiraiya was retrieved, and then they could try to contact him with the toad summons.

From what Naruto's report had detailed, he was doing fine. She could only hope things would stay that way. For now, she'd just have to wait...

Where the hell had Shizune put her sake?

X

"You will tell me where Uzumaki Naruto is, or there will be consequences," the poor man's trousers would never be the same. Nor would his body in a few seconds, as Gaara's sand coffin would see to. Iruka nervously gained the Kazekage's attention with a strained cough.

"I don't believe he knows anything about Naruto-kun, Kazekage-sama," said Kazekage observed him for a moment, before nodding. The terrified man was dropped to the ground, after which he hurriedly scrambled away.

It seemed Naruto wasn't in Bird Country. It had been nice to think that his once-student might have done the sensible thing. Ah well. Gaara glanced at him expectantly, a sign that he had come to understand meant he should get out the map. Spreading it out on a table in the now deserted tea shop, Iruka carefully went over the villages they'd covered.

"Okay. We have so far searched Bird Country and Iwagakure, so our next destination-," the young redhead interrupted him.

"I do not recall searching Iwa," Iruka scratched his scar sheepishly.

"Yes, well. I searched that village first before requesting your aide," Gaara studied him for a few tense moments.

"Very well, Umino-san. But my time is limited, as I can't leave the duties of Kazekage to my sister for prolonged amounts of time. I will soon return to Suna," Gaara's eyes bore into Iruka's own.

"So I suggest you to choose the next, and most probably last, country we search carefully."

X

"Are we there yet, un?" The grating voice of his partner rung in his wooden ears.

"No, Deidara, we're not."

"Well where are we then? Un." Deidara was amusing himself by creating a few small creatures and setting them up in a line. Then exploding one of them. The Deidara version of dominos, a tad more dangerous yes, but oh so much more fulfilling.

"Takigakure."

"Ah, that's Kakuza's home village, right?"

Several more questions were fired at the S-class puppet known as Sasori. None of which very important in his eyes. The stupid amaeture of an artist didn't seem to be slowing down either.

It was just going to be one of those days.

X

Naruto groaned feebly, tugging at the kunai nailing him to the ground. No dice. He rolled his eyes upon seeing his hands had already healed around the kunai. Great, he'd be the one to remove those later. The enormous shadow of his fellow jinchurriki settled above him.

"What did you do wrong?"

"Everything," Naruto replied sarcastically. The foot planted in his stomach told him his sensei wasn't amused.

"What did you do wrong?" Han repeated.

A few minutes later the kunai were removed from the ground allowing a newly humbled Naruto to stand. Han seemed to be thinking for a few moments before he regarded his pupil again.

"I'm leaving for a mission tomorrow." Naruto stared confusedly at Han. He'd had plenty of mission during the period of time they'd been training together, but he'd never actually told Naruto. Just disappeared for a few days and then would show up with a few extra weapons for Naruto to dodge.

"I won't be returning for two weeks." Ah, so that was why. He'd been taking the fact that he didn't have to take any mission for granted. Seems he'd forgotten not everyone was on 'vacation' like him.

"When I return I expect you to have your wind blade adequetly completed. You will also have succeeded in cutting the waterfall. Understood?" Naruto hurridly bobbed his head in the affirmitive.

Han nodded in apparent satisfaction and began walking towards the Tsuchikage Tower, leaving a determined blonde jinchurriki in his wake. Naruto quickly summoned forth another wind blade, and began hacking at the surrounding trees. He'd have the excersises completed in _one _week. And then he'd start working on his rasengan varient, or his name wasn't Uzumaki Naruto!

X

Jiraiya sneezed, causing all four of the surrounding Anbu to make moves towards their weapons. He chuckled sheepishly, holding his hands up placatingly. What a world; after all he'd done for Konoha, and they were sending their elite after him! Inner Jiraiya was crying crocodile tears.

"Jiraiya-sama, we have been ordered by the Hokage to return you to Konoha at once." The emotionless voice of Bear rang through the small clearing they'd found the sage in. Jiraiya studied the surrounding nin specutively. Then he shrugged.

"Well, if Tsunade-hime insists, who am I to argue?" He grinned winningly at Cat, but wasn't awarded with any sort of reaction. He inwardly pouted, blurring through the trees with the Anbu quortet.

X

Iruka stared at the spot the Kazekage had been a few second ago. Hoplesness set into the chunin, who quickly sat down on the ground and buried his face in his hands. The frustarted groan that escaped him was muffled by his calloused hands.

Naruto hadn't been in Kusa.

At this point Iruka didn't know where else to look. He didn't dare search any of the larger villages, such as Kumo, Ame, Kiri, etc. At this point he was marveling at the stupidity he'd shown a few months ago when he'd searched Iwa.

He was surprised he hadn't been caught. Right now though, he reluctantly acknowledged that it would probably be better if he just returned to Konoha. He'd have to trust in Naruto's ability as a ninja. That thought comforted him somewhat, as he'd seen firsthand how much potential the boy had. But he'd also have to trust in his students ability to stay out of sight.

Well, the kid had had a good run, Iruka mused to himself, grabbing his pack and walking down the path towards Konoha.

X

"What?" Ko stared at his pupil.

"I'd like to make myself a weapon that can channel chakra," the blonde repeated.

This was certainly strange. The entire time he'd been here the kid had always followed his instructions, never once asking to do anything besides what Ko had set out for him. They'd been creating windmill shuriken fir the past few days. To jump straight to a weapon, especially one that channeled chakra...

And what would he do with one anyway? Ko had never questioned him about it, but he'd always assumed he'd been a civillian. Large chakra well or not, what kind of ninja worked part-time in an armory?

_A smart one_, he mused to himself. But that was besides the point. He stroked his stubbled chin for a moment. He had the materials required for it, and business hadn't exactly been booming lately. He supposed he could spare the metals.

"Sure kid," Ko chuckled when Naruto began excitdely boucning on the balls of his feet, "But if you want to keep it I'm going to have to take the cost of the materials out of your pay." His pupil predictably drooped.

Tough luck kid, Ko thought, nothing in life is free. Now where had he put that chakra conductive metal...

X

There were some perks to not being alligned to Konohagakure. One of them being that you weren't enemies with one of the most powerful military oreinted villages in the world. Orochimaru had taken full advantage of this.

Making an alliance with Iwa had been more difficult than Orochimaru had thought, and the overall product completely one-sided. Oto was required to assist Iwa in any wars it decided to partiipate in. Iwa did not have these same expectations.

But it had allowed Orochimaru to send the Oto equivelent of several leasions. Onoki and he had agreed that it would be better if they stayed out of sight, the same going for the Iwa plants in his village.

And even though Iwa wan't required, Orochimaru didn't doubt that they'd be more than happy to assist their allied village in the war against Konoha Orochimaru was planning.

But on topic, Orochimaru had been put in the perfect position to evaluate both Sasuke-kun and the Kyuubi brat's abilities. He'd never intended to let his little apprentice track down his rival alone, oh no. He had already sent Kabuto to assemble a small team of elite chunin, which the medic would lead.

He'd ordered Kabuto not to intervine unless Sasuke had been utterly defeated or if he tried to defect. Neither were very likely, as he'd been teaching the young Uchiha how to use his sharingan to counter the Kyuubi. And he still had much to teach him, so he doubted he would try to leave.

He could have easily informed Onoki that he had Konoha's jinchurriki residing just outside of his village, and most likely strengthened the alliance between the two villages. He could have also not informed his apprentice and kept training him at the pace he'd set.

But what would be the fun in that?

X

Naruto stood stock still, eyes closed in concentration, one arm resting comfortably at his side. He took a deep breath, felt the chakra coursing through him. Felt the wind all around him. He released the chakra in his hand, let it mingle with the wind.

Then his hand, which had moments before been gripping nothing, tightened and swung. At first it seemed nothing had happened, before the top half of the training dummy slid off at an angle, clattering to the ground.

Naruto allowed a small grin of triumph, holding the blade of wind tightly. He turned to another training dummy. He had to make sure his blade was consistent, afterall. A half hour later Naruto allowed the blade to disappear, admiring all of the woodchips scattered acrossed the training ground.

A few shunshins later saw the blonde observing the dozen or so bunshin he'd had stay behind and try to cut the waterfall. He settled his hands into a seal, disperssing all of them at once. Leaning against the mountain he'd just traveled over, he processed the information that had just been forced into his head.

Shaking his head slightly, he quickly ran into his cave. Shedding all of his clothes save the black pants, which he rolled up to the knees, Naruto ran back out and created another dozen kage bunshin. Holding out both palms, and action mirrored by his clones, Naruto gathered two blades of razor sharp wind.

Already the small waterfall was almost completely cut, a few streams of water squirting between the gaps between goals. He'd have to widen the range the wind covered. He was so close he could almost taste it. Already he was thinking about how he'd go about adding wind natured chakra to the rasengan. How he would shape it, if he'd infuse the rasengan with it, or make it a sort of shell.

Han had been gone for five days.

X

"He what?" Jiraiya stared at his fellow sannin dumbstruck. "Why the hell didn't the toads tell me about this?" He asked angrily.

"Naruto apparently swore one of them to an oath not to tell anyone his location. So there wasn't any real reason to contact you. Besides, you've been working that one toad like a dog, it's no surprise it doesn't want to tell you." Tsunade drawled, leaning back in her chair.

Jiraiya scratched the back of his neck sheepishly, before he took a seat in one of the rigid backed chairs. He sighed tiredly, rubbing his forhead, "So what, you want me to stay here so we can start messeging the gaki?"

"Precisely," Tsunade agreed. Jiraiya nodded after a moment, withdrawing a book from his pocket. Tsunade growled, but stopped in surprise when she saw the title of the book.

"A book on sealing?" Tsunade raised an eyebrow.

"Well, yeah. The gaki said he's almost at the end of the book he has right now, so I figured I'd at least give him something to work on." Tsunade didn't retort with the '_for once'_ that was begging itself to escape her throat.

It hadn't been spoken, but Jiraya had largely blamed Naruto's disappearence on himself. He'd underestimated the kid's drive, apparently, and figured he'd be fine with the meager lessons he'd been giving him.

Quietly going through the seal, he summoned the small toad known as Gamakichi. Tthe toad had a big grin on his face.

"Watcha want, Niichan?" The toads grin fell when he opeded his eyes to see the Hokage and his older summoner being the only ones present.

"Oh, it's you. What's up, Ero-Jiraiya?" The toad asked curiously.

Jiraiya's eye ticked, and his annoyance wasn't helped by Tsunade's vain attempts to cover up her giggles. The toad sage puffed up his chest.

"I need you to deliver this book," he handed it to the little summon, "and a message to the gaki."The toad nodded.

"M'kay, seeya ecchi!" The toad disappeared, leaving a laughing Hokage and severely annoyed sannin in his wake.

X

Naruto had been just about to start eating his dinner when smoke and a vaeguely amphibian shaped object obscured his vision. Said object turned out to be one of his most common summons.

"Yeah, what's up 'Kichi?" Naruto asked, setting his bowl to the side.

"Ero-Jiraiya and the crazy lady sent you a message." Naruto stared blankly at him, "You know," Gamakichi held both of his cupped 'hands' about a foot way from his chest.

Naruto kept staring for another moment, before the connection was made. He chuckled, a grin adorning his face. He motioned for the little toad to begin.

It was what he'd expected. He was now apparently required to contact Jiraiya once a month detailing the things he'd done. Make sure he stayed out of trouble, and the mandetory order that he'd better return to Konoha.

Surprisingly, the ecchi had had 'Kichi bring him a book on summoning. A quick skim told him it was on things he hadn't studied yet, some of them he was intimately familiar with. Such as the Shiki and Gogio Fuuin's.

When the toad looked epexctantly at him, and then the bowl next to his cot, Naruto sighed. Taking out a large chunk of meat, he flicked it into the air, which the toad promptly jumped up to catch in his mouth.

The toad then disappeared, leaving Naruto to study the book, dinner forgotten.

X

Jiraiya and Tsunade were talking about some of the things that Jiraiya had been doing since he'd left Konoha, when Gamakichi reappeared on the desk. Tsunade jumped, and had to resist the urge to smash the toad into a squishy little mess.

Said toad turned to Jiraiya, a grin on his face.

"Niisan has recieved your message. His reply is, 'Yes, mother'," Gamakichi quickly dispersed, avoiding the thrown kunai by a millisecond, leaving Jiraya to deal with a Kage irate about her now ruined desk.

X

Naruto stood panting, soaking wet, and low on chakra. Yet there was a grin settled firmly on his face. He glance to either side of him, gaining nods from the rows of bunshin. He looked up at the halted waterfall triuphantly, releasing the wind blades in his palm and dispersing his bunshin.

Stumbling away from the gushing waterfall, Naruto sat in the water, rubbing tiredly at his eyes. He'd finished the two excersise Han-sensei had assigned him, and he still had eight days to spare.

A few minutes later he was fully dressed, armor and all, pouring of the scroll holding the blueprints for his rasengan varient. He'd spent most of the previous night thinking of how to intigrate the wind chakra, and had finally decided on a shell. Something sharp, but that was a given. He'd made a rough drawing of what he epected it to look like.

The rasengan it self was normal sized, maybe a bit bigger than usual, and surround by a ring of wind-natured chakra. He recognised that it looked something akin to that planet they'd studied in the academy. What was it... Saturn? Yeah, that sounded about right.

Minutes later found Naruto in the clearing with a rasengan in his palm, desperately trying to gather wind around it. No such luck. It seemed he didn't have teh control or concentration to gather regular and wind-naturedchakra at the same time.

Then an idea struck him. A memory of when he'd first learned the rasengan appearing. Allowing the rasengan to disperse, he summoned a kage bunshin. Another rasengan sprang to life, and the bunshin began surrounding it with wind-nature chakra.

A faint ring began to surround it, and Naruto grinned. This was easier than he'd thought it would be. And then the ring and rasengan touched. Naruto would later thank the heavens that the Kyuubi had deemed a severed hand sufficiently life-threatening enough as to heal it in a few seconds.

X

**AN: **I'm feeling pretty good about this chapter. I plan on leaving the poll open for one or two chapters, so for anyone who hasn't voted yet, you might want to. If the winner is harem, then I'll be choosing the number of girls and the girls themselves.

I realize the lengths of the chapters aren't anything special, so I'm trying to get some chapters out at a fairly fast rate. Thanks to the users that have put me on their alert list. Don't forget to leave your opinions on this and all previous chapters.

Oh, any beta readers would be appreciated.


	6. Routine

**Will of Fire, Heart of Rock**

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the Naruto manga or anime.

**AN: **One of my reviewers has brought it to my attention that this story is similar to Lord Bear's fanfic The Greatest Shinobi War, which I've checked out. And yes, they are very similar. But I hadn't known about his work until 'ken' informed me of such.

But ignoring all of that, there are plenty of things different in this story when compared to his. Besides, that story has been discontinued for quite awhile. I've already PM'd him about the confusion, and he's not bothered.

I'm not a fanfic stealer. I've always thought it'd be cool to write about a story where Naruto goes to Iwa, the details have never been specific. The training arc was a convenient starting point. Sorry to Lord Bear and any of his fans whom this fic offends, as I've acknowledged from the few chapters I've read so far that his is much better than mine.

**insomniac1: **First of all, thanks for the review. In my and Naruto's defence he wasn't just 'winging' it. He found the closest elemental country and after finding it wasn't secure went to the nearest Hidden Village. He isn't practising the Hiraishin. By the time he is experienced enough in seals to do so, he'll most likely be in Konoha.

Besides that I can't really rebuttal your comments because they're true. Thanks for the constructive criticizm though.

**Still Not Dead Yet: **The armor Naruto now possesses isn't exactly like Han's, just in appearence. There aren't any real abilities that come with it, it was just Han's idea of a good set of armor/clothing since Naruto is going to be fighting some tough battles in the near future.

And the reason Naruto wasn't forced to use a full cloak of Kyuubi's chakra to regenerate was because it was only his first try (with a bunshin) so it would lack the power of one created by a Naruto who has taken the time to train with it. It still has a lot of power though, as Naruto's hand can attest to.

Anyway, this is the unfortunately un-beta'd chapter six.

XI

When Han returned from his mission and went to check up on his student, he was greeted with a rather nonplussing sight. His pupil lying on the ground holding the bloody stump that used to be his hand wasn't quite what Han had been expecting. Seeing crimson chakra surround his arm and begin healing the wound was. Han glanced at the armor that was supposed to be covering his right arm set off to the side.

So the gaki had expected whatever had happened to happen. Han surpressed his chakra signature, observing the blonde stem the bloodflow coming from his arm. A couple minutes later he was flexing his reattached hand to get the blood flowing in it. Then he created a kage bunshin and created a rasengan in his right hand.

Han watched in interest as the clone held both of its hands of the sphere, and concentrated. A humming disk suddenly spun to life around the rasengan. Han stared in brief awe at the spinning construct of destruction, before the cause of Naruto's previous injury decided to make itself known. It was subtle at first, a slight fluctuation in the disk, causing it to wobble ever so slightly.

The jutsu had been resting in his palm for less than three seconds when the disk briefly skimmed the rasengan. In a mighty explosion that blew Naruto backwards on his ass, the technique imploded. The bunshin had been forcefully dispersed, leaving Naruto once more clutching the bloody stump where his hand had been.

Han then made himself known, walking with deliberately loud steps. Naruto's head snapped up, his good hand reaching for a seal on his forearm. The genin relaxed when he recognized him as his mentor. Relief changed to nervousness when he noticed the glare Han was giving him. Pushing himself up, his hand once more healed, Naruto quickly attached his armor to his blood-stained arm.

"What the hell was that?" Naruto winced at the harsh tone, pawing the ground with his geta. His sensei was currently drawn up to his full height, an impressive sight all things considered. The fact that he couldn't see the bottom half of his face only worsened the intimidating image the jinchurriki presented.

"Well, my arsenal of jutsu isn't exactly extraordinary when you subtract the rasengan and kage bunshin. And Ero-sensei's always been telling me how the rasengan is an incomplete technique. So I've been trying to make my own variation of it." Han regarded his pupil curiously, anger momentarily forgotten.

"Who's 'Ero-sensei'?" Naruto chuckled sheepishly, remembering that not everyone referred to the echhi as such.

"That's what I call Jiraiya-sensei." Han processed this particular piece of information. So the kid was the apprentice of the Gama Sannin, eh? It wasn't all that surprising when he thought about it. Who else could the kid have learned the rasengan from? His eyes narrowed as that particular thought brought him back to his original source of annoyance.

"Now what about this variation you're trying to create?" Naruto nervously rubbed his arm, glancing up at the impassive face of his sensei.

"Well, since wind is my affinity, and one of the most destructive elements, I figured it would go well with the rasengan, which is purely chakra based. That's why I was doing all of those wind excersises when you found me. To get a better control over it before I tried to mix them" Han mulled over this, mentally organizing all the pros and cons of such a technique.

On the one hand, the jutsu seemed to require a large amount of control. And if that control wasn't present, it viciously backfired on the user. It also seemed to take a lot of chakra, but that wasn't really a concern for his fellow jinchurriki.

And then on the other hand, the technique promised unheard of destruction, just from the glimpse he'd seen of it. In theory the technique was ingenius, but in practise... Well, Naruto had experienced the difficulties such a jutsu presented firsthand. But Han had _felt _the power that jutsu had been radiating in waves. It was the perfect technique to combat the heavy-hitters of Akatsuki. Han motioned Naruto into his cave.

"Alright, sit down kid," Naruto obliged, "What you're trying to create is quite possibly an S-class jutsu, and it'll hurt you just as much as your opponent if you don't control it. The basic properties of the resengan that make it so destructive are the constan currents of chakra always spinning in different directions." Naruto nodded, adjusting himself on his cot.

"When you try to add wind into the mix, you're creating something far exceeding the rasengan in terms of pure destruction. But if the wind touches the rasengan, which is moving in all kinds of different direction, they'll grind against construct is going to be touchy, and will detenate at the slightest of contacts. When its two halves rub together, well, you know." Naruto could have sworn the jinchurriki was grinning down at him under his mask. Naruto grumbled, crossing his arms.

"Well how do I keep the wind and the rasengan from touching?" Naruto asked smartly. His sensei's eyes narrowed warningly.

"Don't get testy with me boy, I don't need to be doing this," Naruto recognized the underlying threat as what it was, the fact that Han could turn him into the Tsuchikage anytime he wanted to. "Since you don't have the time to adequately master the wind element, it would make things a bit easier to have an extra bunshin as to split up the tasks. You would create the original rasengan, one of your bunshin would supply the wind chakra, and the other would control it."

Naruto nodded, having thought of the idea a couple days ago. He'd dismissed it as being too impractical, but he hadn't been making much progress, so he didn't seem to have much of a choice. Naruto stood up, prepared for another bout of training. Han shook his head watching the blonde dive through the waterfall. The kid was certainly something, and Han didn't doubt that someday he might surpass him.

Ko studied the blade spectutively, observing the detail and workmanship his pupil had spent several painstaking days forging. They'd both decided on a katana, to help counter Naruto's short reach. It was a simple looking blade, the handle a deep crimson. The sheath the kid had decided on was a similarly bloody color.

Ko had intervened every now and again, making sure that Naruto didn't waste the expensive materials. Ko allowed a small amount of pride to make itself known, as this was the first large weapon his pupil had forged almost completely by himself.

The katana would be capable of chanelling wind chakra, something Naruto had been adamant about. All in all a beautiful weapon, not a masterpiece by any means, but that was to be expected. Ko handed him a significantly smaller amount of bills than usual and bid him goodbye, which he accepted gratefully.

A few minutes later Naruto was in training ground seven, having personally gone to the armory today to retrieve his blade. He experimentally channeled some chakra into the katana. Instantly a faint glow shown on the conductive metal. Concentrating it into wind, Naruto observed the near transparent edge the blade now held.

Giving it an experimental swing, Naruto watched in shock as the wind dislodged itself from the blade and sped into the training dummy. Naruto stared at the cut that had appeared in the wood. Gathering more of the volatile elemant, he gave another swipe, and another cut dug its way into the wood. A sadistic grin adorned his face. He was going to like this blade, he could already tell.

A few hours later he was in his dwelling, busily carving several seal into his armor. One of the first seals he'd found in the book was the Fuka Hoin seal, a fire absorber. And if what the description said was true it was an extremely powerful one at that. So he was currently carving said seal into each piece of armor and his sheath. He thoughtfully considered asking Ko-sensei to inscribe his katana as well. It wouldn't do to completely screw up his completely awesome chakra-conductive blade.

He then drew the seal on a slip of paper. Channeling chakra into it, he let it drop into the fire. He felt satisfaction course through him when the fire was slowly sucked into the un-singed seal. This would definitely come in handy later on.

Han had been pleased with Naruto's new weapon of choice. Naruto had felt proud that his sensei had acknowledged a weapon of his own making. Han offered to help him with his Kenjutsu so he could better wield his katana. Naruto agreed, the possibilities presenting themselves that would come with a competent amount of skill in the art too tempting to pass up. Now he was cursing the damn weapon and its existance for all he was worth.

Ducking under the flurry of kunai, Naruto was faced with another varitable wall of steely death. As he'd been forced to several times throughout the 'spar' Naruto made a hurried swipe with his sword. The wind blade erupting from the tip of the katana knocked several of the kunai and shuriken away, leaving a small gap.

Making several acrobatic twist and turns Naruto managed to make it through relatively unscathed. A sudden heat alerted Naruto to a recently created pheonix flower jutsu bearing down on him. Naruto sharp eyes didn't miss the cleverly hidden weapons just behind the fire's surface.

The jutsu was mere inches from his face leaving him no time to counter. Squinting his eyes shut and praying that it would work, Naruto channeled chakra into small black seal on his chest plate. Throwing his arms up as to shield his face, Naruto hoped for the best. A large amount of vapor erupted from his chest. The initial impact of the katon jolted him a bit, and there were several sharp impacts that were more or less blocked by the metal plates of his armor. But when he finally lowered his arms he saw that the only things remaining of the jutsu were faint traces of smoke around his armor and several scattered kunai.

Naruto wasted no time making the seals for the shunshin and concealing himself behind a large boulder. Thanking Kami for giving him the insight to add those seals to his armor, Naruto quickly went over his inventory.

Hm, almost out of kunai. Forget shuriken, he went through those things like ramen. He had a few mikabishi left, which would be useful when Han-sensei decided to work on his taijutsu again. Taking a few moments to partially release the tatto on his chest and give him a small boost in chakra, he shunshined behind a tree just as an explosive-tag wrapped kunai obliterated his recent hiding spot.

Rushing from behind the tree with what Naruto hoped was the element of surprise, he sent several mobile wind blades into the tree his sensei was currently situated in. It toppled over, leaving nothing but piles of wood. Naruto's shoulders tensed, feeling light gust of wind blowing behind him.

He spun around and brought up his katana, already reinforced with chakra. It met the clenched fist of the Gobi jinchurriki, and Naruto released a grunt, his muscles bulging as he strained to hold back the powerful punch. Not a moment later a condensed beam of stem erupted from his sensei's armor, spraying him right in the face. A small cry erupted from the back of Naruto's throat and he stumbled backwards, clutching his burnt face in agony.

Collapsing to his knees, he ripped his hands from his face, revealing angry red flesh. His burnt hands twitched uncomfortably as they ran through the seals for the Usui Kareda. Water from a nearby stream rose to incase him in a thin shield. Naruto allowed a small sigh to escape him as the pain was momentarily allevated. Forcing himself to his feet, he felt the healing properties of the Kyuubi slowly begin to heal his damaged face and hands.

The large jinchurriki walked towards him at a casual gait. It seemed their training session was over, Naruto thought with a relieved sigh. Han appraised Naruto for a moment.

"That was an interesting thing you did back there boy, what exactly was that technique you used to negate the effects of my Katon?" Han's eyes reflected his curiousity, something he'd been feeling a lot since he'd met the kid. Naruto glanced down at the small black designs.

"They're some seals from the book on sealing I've been studying, they obsorb fire. I figured it'd be useful to have them carved into my armor so they'd always be accessible. The details of the seal imply it doesn't make the fire disappear, so I'm unsure if I'll have to release the fire before I can re-use the seal." Naruto allowed his ego to swell the slightest bit when he saw the impressed glint in his sensei's eyes.

"Our training is over. Tomorrow we'll start on the basics of a simple kenjutsu style." Naruto nodded, sheathing his katana which had been stuck into the ground next to him. The Iwa-nin shunshined away, leaving Naruto to collect the fallen weapons. There was no use in wasting them, and Naruto could always sharpen the blunted ones.

An exhausted Naruto slowly walked through the streets of Iwa. Coming across a small ramen shop, Naruto mentally calculated how much money he had to spend and when he'd be getting his next paycheck. Deciding that he had enough for a small splurge, Naruto pushed aside the flaps of the cozey looking shack.

Kudo Daisuke had never been a rich man. In fact, one might go so far as to say his family had been drop dead poor for decades. A line of civillians, none too many of them with special talents. There was no family business for the children of the Kudo line to integrate themselves. As it were, most had been forced to open their own businesses, as job-openings were sparce in the village of Iwa.

They'd had their fair shair of relatives that had left for greener pastures, some merely traveling to other parts of the country, and a few daring to venture into other nations. They were a largely unassuming clan, and old man Daisuke was no exception. The owner of a small ramen stand in the slums of Iwa, he couldn't always afford the many bills that he was forced to pay. Let alone have the amount left over to hire employees.

That wasn't to say he was miserable though. He and his brothers and sisters had always been optimistic, a trait fairly common among their family. The glass was always half full, every storm cloud had a silver lining, etc. It was rather hard on the old man though. He didn't get much business, as a large percentage of Iwa's population consisted of ninja, and ramen wasn't the healthiest of substances.

Counting up the bills in the register, he decided he'd have to close up shop for the day. He hadn't had a customer in over an hour, and it didn't make much sense to keep all of his appliances on for nonexistent visitors. His hand had moved towards one of the stove's nobs when he heard a small rustling of fabric.

Daisuke looked up, surprised to see a tired-looking young man standing inside of the flaps that seperated his shop from the outside world. The blonde trudged over to one of the stools, sitting down with obvious relief. Daisuke smiled, quickly setting a pot of water on the stove to boil.

He hurried up to the counter, where his customer was surveying the menu hanging from the ceiling behind the counter. Daisuke amusedly noticed the small spark of longing hidden behind thoughful blue eyes.

"May I take your order, young sir?" Said person turned his attention to Daisuke, intense eyes studying him for a few moments. He then turned his gaze towards his armored limbs that had been previously resting on the counter. A few moments later several pieces of armor were resting on the smooth stone and the blonde was stretching his freed arms.

"Hm," the blonde hummed, seemingly having trouble deciding. "I'll take three large miso, please." He requested politely. Daisuke's eyes lit up at the hefty order, and he wasted no time totalling up the amount.

Naruto dug out the small pouch that held his money and counted out the appropriate sum. The chef nodded in thanks and hurried to the back. It was a few minutes later that a steaming bowl of miso ramen was set in front of Naruto, the second and third coming another couple of minutes later.

While the blonde was busy slurping up noodles, Daisuke took the chance to study him. His attire in particular struck a cord in the old chef's mind, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it... Oh! His mind suddenly recalled the small festivale that had been held after the Third Great Shinobi War. There hadn't been much to celebrate, but there had been two influencial figures that had recieved large amounts of praise for their amazing capabilities in the field.

The vilage's residint jinchurriki. The Gobi jinchurriki in particular. His unique choice of clothing was hard to miss, after all. He went back to studying his small customer, who had by now finished his first bowl and was halfway through his second. The similarities between the two were astonishing, the only differences being a few missing accessories and the pair of red wooden geta the boy was sporting.

Very strange, he thought to himself. The boy wasn't sporting a headband, which led Daisuke to believe he wasn't a shinobi. But why would a civillian wear a full set of battle armor? There was always the possibility of him being a samurai, but that seemed rather unlikely considering his young age.

His musings were interrupted by a small thanks from his customer, and he stared at the stack of empty bowls. Then up to the contented young man strapping his armor back on. That was certainly fast, he thought numbly, glancing up at the clock to see that the bowls had been set on the counter not ten minutes ago.

A small clatter brought him back to the present, and he once again stared at the counter. This time his attention captured by the small pile of coins that had been left there. He didn't recieve many tips. Looking up to thank his mysterious customer, he was greeted with an armored back.

The last thing he saw before the armored blonde disappeared through the flaps was a large sheath strapped to his back, the crimson color of it shining melevolantly. A stray thought reafirmed itself in his mind.

Very strange.

XI

The morning after his visit to Daisuke-san's ramen shack had Naruto carefully instructing a clone wielding a brush that had been dipped into the routine ink-blood-chakra mix. Next to him the book on sealing lay open to a page. The visible seal was unnamed.

After finishing up that process Naruto ate a hurried breakfast of dried fruit and juice. Leaving his cave, he proceeded to the beat up training ground he'd been doing most of his physical training. After several minutes of stretches, Naruto created a couple dozen shadow clones. The sun had risen a few hours ago and it was a cheerful day. The resounding peace was interrupted by a mental signal between the numerous figures.

Naruto's eyes flickered from left to right, his muscles a tight coil ready to spring. The most gutsy of the two dozen came at him like a raging bull. The subsequent duck and uppercut brought the number of opponents down to twenty-three. Twisting suddenly he exchanged a few blows with two bunshin, finishing both at the same time with a viscious roundhouse.

That was three.

A vibration under his feet brought his attention to the ground. Jumping up high, he just avoided the two arms that had emerged grasping from the earth. Landing with an almighty stomp he crushed the clone's hands and dispersed it. Another clone charge in with two kunai gripped in its hands. The clone coming up from behind didn't go unnoticed.

Just when the two had almost reached him, Naruto quickly backflipped. The metal plating of his geta clashed with his surprised clone's two kunai and sent them up in the air. Coming down, his sandals smashed against the clone that had been advancing from behind. Landing in a crouch, he sprung upwards. Grabbing the two airborne kunai, he sent one into the owner's skull and the other into another unlucky clone that had happened to be in his range.

Seven.

Flashing through seals, he faced an oncoming horde. All of their collective eyes widened, and dirt was kicked up in their attempts to stop and change direction. Naruto allowed himself a small smirk; too late. A raging wind erupted from his mouth, picking up dust and clones on its painful trip into several of the surrounding boulders and stumps.

Twelve.

Feeling a swell of chakra, Naruto turned towards the large disturbance. He cursed under his breath when he saw the three clones side-by-side just finishing up a string of seals. He tried to shunshin away, but couldn't gather the appropriate amounts of chakra before getting slammed with a jutsu he'd performed himself mere seconds ago. Only three times as strong.

Unfortunately, the clones had been situated behind him, and he shared a fate similar to his clones. The only difference being he didn't burst into smoke after the strong flash of pain that coursed through his back. Landing in the stream he'd summoned his shield from the previous day, he took a moment to regain the breath that had been knocked out of him. A mistake.

The instinctual jerking of his head prevented it from being forcefully torn off by the strong stream of water that had been sent towards him. Drawing the liquids around him into a shield, he allowed himself a smug grin when the next stream splashed harmlessly against him.

He heard the tell-tale taps of a clone travelling across the water towards him. Playing dumb, he stood and pretended to examine one of the seals on his skin. Turning on a dime, he grabbed the back of the surprised clones head and slammed it into the hard ground of the shore.

Thirteen.

Drawing several shuriken he sent them at the group of clones that had sent him into the wall with their combined daitoppa. Clenching his eyes shut in concentration, he shoved both hands forward. A small gust of wind shot outward, speeding the shuriken along faster than the trio of clones could react.

Turning towards the remaining eight clones, Naruto settled into a ready stance. Easily catching the thrown punch from one of his clones, he yanked it forward and sent a crushing elbow into its head. He rolled his eyes when he saw the two clones coming at him from either side. Taking a step back, he grabbed both by the backs of their heads and slammed them into eachother.

Nineteen.

Summoning a wind blade, he quickly dispatched three more incoming clones. The fourth whom had been observing him summoned its own and they engaged in a brief clash. The force Naruto put into his slash couldn't be matched by the measly clone though, and it was soon gone.

Twenty-three.

The remaining clone and the original stared at eachother for several moments. Wordlessly, the clone retrieved three kunai, which were clenched between its left hand. The other gripped a deadly wind blade. A quick burst of chakra later, it was speeding towards its creator.

Right into a rasengan. Currently the noblest of deaths any clone had recieved today. Naruto tiredly wiped the sweat from his brow, chest heaving ever so slightly.

Twenty-four.

Calming himself, glanced up at the sun's position. Cursing filled the field moments later. Han would be at the field in a few minutes for their kenjutsu lesson and he'd left his armor and katana back at the camp. He disappeared a moment later in a swirl of leaves.

In his frantic state he didn't notice the awed children hiding behind a large rock. There had been no school at the academy today, and a group of friends had decided to get some training in at the nearest training grounds. The inspiring performance would be remembered by the small group of students for years to come and would always serve as a source of motivation.

XI

**AN: **Hey there people, hope you enjoyed the chapter. Not much to say besides that, except that I'm still lookinig for a bet. Word count was somewhere around mid 4k. Review.


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